Non-Muslim Minorities Face Discrimination, Repression in Iran: US Commission

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom urged US President Obama Oct. 29 to pressure Iran to release a Christian pastor facing a death sentence, reports the Baptist Press.

Youcef Nadarkhani, a pastor in Northern Iran, reportedly has been tried and informed verbally he will be executed for committing apostasy under Iran’s militant Islamic regime, according to the commission (USCIRF).

Authorities arrested Nadarkhani in October 2009 after he questioned the Muslim domination of religious instruction in the school attended by his children, USCIRF reported. He argued Iran’s constitution allows parents to train children in the Christian faith. Nadarkhani’s wife, Fatemeh Passandideh, also was charged with apostasy, but she was released this month after four months of imprisonment, USCIRF reported, based on sources in Iran and the U.S. government.

“This case is further evidence that there is no transparency or justice in Iran’s so-called legal system for religious minorities,” USCIRF Chair Leonard Leo said in a written statement. “The Obama Administration must continue to speak out, as Secretary of State Clinton did in August, for Iran’s religious minorities. International pressure impacts Iran, and the regime has shown leniency in some cases where there is international scrutiny.

The US State Department has named Iran as one of eight “countries of particular concern,” a designation reserved for the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

Iran’s regime has abused human rights for more than three decades, and its weak record on religious liberty has declined further in the last year, USCIRF has reported. This has been true especially in regard to minorities such as Baha’is, Christians and Sufi Muslims.

“[P]hysical attacks, harassment, detention, arrests, and imprisonment [have] intensified,” according to the commission. “Even the recognized non-Muslim religious minorities — Jews, Armenian and Assyrian Christians, and Zoroastrians — protected under Iran’s constitution faced increasing discrimination and repression.”