Christian convert Nayereh Arjaneh from Garmsar in northern Iran began serving her ten-year prison sentence on 23 December. She and her husband Qasem Esmaili were arrested at their home on 7 July 2025 after they attended a Christian seminar in Turkey with a group converts earlier in the year. Christian converts are not permitted to meet for worship in Iran and some travel to neighbouring countries to attend church services and receive teaching.
Nayereh was sentenced to a total of ten years in prison, but under Iranian law only the most severe sentence (five years’ imprisonment in her case) is enforceable. She is in Semnan Prison, one and a half hour’s drive east of her home.
Qasem was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, but his sentence has not yet been enforced due to a diagnosis of cancer and ongoing chemotherapy treatment.
Judge Farshid Safdari of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Garmsar sentenced Nayereh to five years in prison, a fine equivalent to approximately €1280, two years’ post-release internal exile in Kouhbanan in Kerman province (ten hours’ drive from home) and a two-year travel ban on charges of “promoting deviant propaganda and teachings contrary to Islamic law”.
She was also sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of around €430 for “providing financial and material support to groups affiliated with Zionist Christianity”, but was acquitted of a separate charge of “insulting religious sanctities”.
Following Nayereh’s arrest she spent nearly forty days in detention before being released on bail equivalent to around €3400. On 7 October, however, she was summoned for interrogation again and was detained for three more days until her bail – which the prosecutor had raised to around €13,000 – was secured. She was then temporarily released on bail for a second time.
During her detention Nayereh was subjected to psychological torture, including being threatened with execution. In 2022 she received a six-month suspended prison sentence for her Christian activities.
(Article 18)
Photo: Article 18