At least 21 Christians were arrested in five Iranian cities in the two weeks after the ceasefire with Israel came into effect on 25 June. Ministry of Intelligence agents arrested Christians in Tehran, Rasht, Orumiyeh, Kermanshah and Varamin, while a further arrest took place in Kerman just before the conflict began. Article 18 (Church in Chains’ partner organisation) is also in the process of verifying multiple other reports of arrests.
Details of cases have not been made public beyond the fact that some relate to possession of Bibles, while others relate to a newly proposed law that threatens harsh punishments for alleged collaboration with “hostile states” such as the United States or Israel.
Prosecutors and judges in Iran frequently label evangelical Christians as “Zionists”, “deviants” and belonging to “illegal sects” in an attempt to distinguish them from the Orthodox and Catholic Christians of Armenian and Assyrian descent who are permitted to meet for worship.
UN experts express alarm over crackdown in Iran
In a press release on 4 July, UN experts including the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Nazila Ghanea, expressed alarm over the crackdown in Iran since hostilities began on 13 June 2025 and the ceasefire came into effect on 25 June.
The UN experts wrote, “Post-conflict situations must not be used as an opportunity to suppress dissent and increase repression” and noted their concern over reports of executions, enforced disappearances and mass arrests. Highlighting the targeting of minorities, the experts wrote: “Hundreds of individuals… have been detained on accusations of ‘collaboration’ or ‘espionage’” and expressed concern at reports of incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence in the media, which have labelled entire minority communities as traitors and used dehumanising language such as “filthy rats.”
The experts condemned the “deteriorating” conditions faced by prisoners transferred after the Israeli air strike on Tehran’s Evin Prison, noting that prisoners moved to the Greater Tehran Penitentiary and to Qarchak Prison are being held in “abysmal” conditions. They added that “the fate and whereabouts of some prisoners remain unknown, placing them outside the protection of the law – a situation that amounts to enforced disappearances”.
At least eleven Christians were in Evin Prison at the time of the air strike and all are believed to have been transferred to different facilities in the Tehran region.
(Article 18, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights)
Map: Article 18