IRAN
Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Iran is an Islamic Republic based on a theocratic constitution adopted after the Islamic Revolution that toppled the Shah in 1979.[1] Article 12 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (revised in 1989) states that the “official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Ja'farî school [in usul al-Dîn and fiqh], and this principle will remain eternally immutable”. However, it further stipulates that, “Other Islamic schools, including the Hanafi, Shafiʻi, Maliki, Hanbali, and Zaydi, are to be accorded full respect, and their followers are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious rites.” Article 13 recognises some protected religious minorities: “Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who, within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education.”[2] Two seats in the Iranian Parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran (Majlis) are reserved for Armenian Christians – the country’s largest Christian minority (300,000), and one each for Assyrian Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians.[3]
The state[4] is under the authority of the Shi‘a clergy, who rule through the Rahbar-e mo’azzam-e Irān, the Supreme Leader of Iran, nominated for life by an 88-member Assembly of Experts – elected by the people for a term of eight years.[5] The Council of Guardians, a 12-member body of jurists, acts as an upper legislative body (six appointed by the Supreme Leader and six civil jurists nominated by the Supreme Judicial Council and elected by the Majlis).[6] The Council of Guardians exercises control over the laws and governing bodies of the state, including the presidency, whose office holder is elected by direct vote for a four-year term, renewable once.[7]
In Iran, one of the principal obstacles to full religious freedom is apostasy. The government deems any citizens who cannot prove that they or their family were non-Muslim prior to 1979 to be Muslim.[8] Conversion from Islam to another religion is not explicitly banned in the constitution or the Penal Code of Iran, but it is difficult because of the country’s powerful Islamic traditions and the legal system founded on Shari‘a (Islamic law). For all situations not catered for explicitly by the codified law, judges have the option, under Article 167, to refer to “authoritative Islamic sources or authentic fatawa [fatwas]”. In cases of apostasy, convictions are based on Shari‘a and fatwas, and sentences can include the death penalty.[9] Christian converts are not allowed to legally register themselves as Christians and nor are they entitled to the same rights as recognised members of Christian communities.
The country’s Penal Code has provisions against blasphemy. Article 513 states: “Anyone who insults the sacred values of Islam or any of the Great Prophets or [twelve] Shiʻite Imams or the Holy Fatima, if considered as Saab ul-nabi [as having committed actions warranting the hadd punishment for insulting the Prophet], shall be executed; otherwise, they shall be sentenced from one to five years in prison.” Article 514 states, “Anyone who, by any means, insults Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and/or the Supreme Leader shall be sentenced to six months to two years’ imprisonment.”[10]
In February 2021, the Iranian parliament amended Articles 499 and 500 of the Penal Code, widening the scope for prosecuting Christians, especially converts from Islam.[11] Article 499 bis prescribes prison sentences of two to five years and/or a monetary fine for “anyone who insults … divine religions … recognised under the Constitution, and causes thereby violence or tensions” or of establishing or promoting “deviant sects” perceived as threats to national security. This provision has been widely employed to target Christian converts and unrecognised religious minorities, who are frequently charged with propagating a “deviant ideology”. Article 500 bis further criminalises the use of media, educational platforms, or social networks to disseminate content deemed to be deviant from an ideological or sectarian point of view, especially when considered by the State as undermining public order or national security. These broadly worded amendments have facilitated State repression of freedom of religion and expression.[12]
Incidents and developments
On 28 January 2023, Anahita Khademi, the wife of Christian prisoner Matthias (Abdulreza) Ali-Haghnejad, was released on bail.[13] She had been summoned on 3 January 2023 for questioning at the offices of the intelligence service in Bandar Anzali where she was arrested for “propaganda against the state” and “disturbing public opinion”. Her arrest followed that of her husband, who was detained a week earlier, on 26 December 2022.[14]
In January 2023, Abbas Dehghan, a member of Iran’s Gonabadi Dervishes religious minority, was released after spending almost five years behind bars.[15]
In January 2023, a court sentenced Kurdish Sunni cleric Seyyed Seyfollah Hosseini to a total of 17 years in prison, 74 lashes, and two years of internal exile in Ardabil, north-western Iran, over charges that include “inciting people to disrupt the security of the country”. The court also defrocked Hosseini.[16]
In February 2023, Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was released after years in prison thanks to an amnesty ordered by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to mark the 1979 Islamic Revolution.[17] In July 2023, according to a CSW report, Pastor Nadarkhani and Pastor Matthias (Abdulreza) Ali-Haghnejad again faced charges of undermining state security, after a couple from their Church had been pressured into incriminating them.[18]
In March 2023, UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman spoke to the 52nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council, expressing his concern over serious allegations concerning people killed, jailed, tortured and raped, plus cases of persecution and enforced disappearance in Iran.[19]
Ever since the arrest of Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman, for non-compliance with the dress code and her subsequent death in police custody in September 2022, the hijab question has remained a highly controversial matter in Iran. The young woman’s death in police custody sparked nationwide protests that were brutally repressed by the government.[20] According to the UN, an estimated 20,000 people were arrested and detained between September 2022 and February 2023 for supporting or participating in the protests.[21] In June 2023, a UN report claimed that members of minority communities were disproportionately targeted for arrest during the protests.[22] In July 2023, at least 12 Kurdish civilians and activists were arrested in West Azerbaijan Province ahead of the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death.[23]
In May 2023, Iran executed Yousef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare for, among other things, blasphemy, and insulting Islam, the Prophet Mohammed and other sanctities.[24]
In May 2023, three Iranian women converts to Christianity – Shilan Oraminejad, Razieh (Maral) Kohzady and Zahra (Yalda) Heidary – were arrested without charges, and held incommunicado in Tehran’s Evin Prison for 40 days.[25]
In May 2023, authorities released Christians Sara Ahmadi and Homayoun Zhaveh from prison after a judge broke with legal precedent and ruled that participation in house church gatherings was not illegal.[26]
In June 2023, a plot to assassinate Sunni cleric Molavi Abdulhamid was foiled. The man held in connection with the incident appeared to be a religious student who claimed that the plan to poison the influential Sunni leader was staged by the intelligence service of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The cleric was openly critical of the Iranian government over a deadly crackdown that left about 100 people dead in Zahedan.[27] The government tried to pressure officials at Zahedan’s Makki Mosque, where the cleric preaches, to deny the assassination attempt.[28]
Later in June 2023, security forces arrested Molavi Abdulhamid’s grandson to put pressure on the outspoken Sunni cleric.[29] Sunni Muslims are in the majority in Sistan-Baluchistan Province in south-eastern Iran but a minority in the rest of the country. In June 2023, IranWire reported that another Sunni cleric, Molavi Abdulmajid Moradzahi, had been held in solitary confinement for four months without any formal charges. The 63-year-old man, advisor to Molavi Abdulhamid, was arrested in January 2023 during anti-government protests in Zahedan and reportedly subjected to torture.[30]
In July 2023, Iranian authorities launched a new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf, sending the morality police back into the streets 10 months after Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody, sparking nationwide protests.[31]
In October 2023, a 16-year-old Iranian girl, Armita Geravand, died following an incident in the Teheran metro where she was injured in a confrontation with morality police officers for allegedly violating the country’s hijab law, a claim Iranian authorities reject. After falling into a coma, she was declared brain dead.[32]
In October 2023, Arash Moradi, a Gonabadi dervish, was arrested in Kashan, while his personal belongings, including his laptop and mobile phone, were confiscated.[33]
According to a report by the Oslo-based NGO, Iran Human Rights, at least 834 people were executed in Iran in 2023, a 43 percent increase compared to 582 in 2022. Two were executed after they were convicted on blasphemy charges and 39 for “corruption on earth” and “Enmity against God”.[34]
According to a report by the NGO, Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the courts sentenced 115 individuals from religious minorities to a total of 5,113 months of imprisonment in 2023. The report adds that arrests of members of religious minorities increased by 1.4 percent, while custodial sentences rose by 45 percent, with an overall 48 percent increase in incarceration over 2022. Most human rights violations against religious minorities involved Baha’is (85 percent), Sunnis (11 percent), Yarsans (2 percent), plus Gonabadi Dervishes, Christians, and other groups.[35]
In December 2023, the Tehran Revolutionary Court convicted Arash Moradi, a Gonabadi Sufi, on several charges, sentencing him to a total of eight years: two years for “disturbing public opinions,” one for “propaganda against the regime,” three for “blasphemy,” and two for “insulting the former and current Supreme Court of Iran,” to be served concurrently.[36]
In December 2023, a court sentenced Sunni Kurdish clerics Seyyed Soleyman Ahmadi, Younes Nowkhah, Seyyed Jamaladdin Vazhi and Sharif Mahmoudpour to a total of 11 years in prison. The clerics were charged with “action against national security” and “disturbing public opinion”.[37]
In January 2024, Iranian authorities whipped a woman 74 times for “violating public morals” and fined her for not covering her head.[38]
Christian convert Laleh Saati, who had returned to Iran in 2017, was arrested in February 2024 for “acting against national security by connecting with Zionist Christian organisations”. The following month, she was sentenced to two years in prison.[39]
In February 2024, Hakop Gochumyan was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “engaging in deviant proselytising activity that contradicts the sacred law of Islam,” as a leading member of “a network of evangelical Christianity”. In June 2024, his appeal was rejected.[40]
On 20 February 2024, Ebrahim Firouzi, a 37-year-old Iranian Christian convert and former prisoner of conscience, was found dead in his home in Rask, south-eastern Iran, from a heart attack. Firouzi had faced repeated arrests and imprisonment due to his religious beliefs and activities, including his involvement in underground house churches and the possession of Bibles. First detained in 2011, he spent several years in prison on various charges, including “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and “acting against national security.”[41]
In March 2024, Maryam (Marzieh) Khalili went before the Revolutionary Court of Isfahan on charges of “insulting the Supreme Leader” and “blasphemy”.[42]
In March 2024, Sunni cleric Molavi Abdulhamid called on the authorities to disclose what happened on 30 September 2022 in what came to be known as the Bloody Friday massacre, resulting in over 100 deaths. Another protest in November 2022 led to further deaths in Khash County.[43]
In April 2024, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the ancient mausoleum of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, a major archaeological site that is important in both Jewish and Christian traditions. The city’s governor claimed that the authorities had identified the people involved in the incident thanks to surveillance video, but who instigated the attack was still a mystery.[44]
In May 2024, after 14 years in prison, Khosrow Besharat, a Sunni, was executed for killing an imam. According to Iran International, the charges against him were false.[45]
In May 2024, government agents cleared rice paddies owned by Baha’is in Ahmadabad, a village in Māzandarān Province, with crops and irrigation berms destroyed in the operation.[46]
In July 2024, an armed attack against a Sufi sheikh in Saqqez resulted in the deaths of two of his followers, with the sheikh eventually succumbing to his injuries.[47]
In July 2024, Iranian authorities put strong pressure on Iranian Jews to vote in the country’s presidential election; to this end, they set up for the first time special voting stations for Jews and held unprecedented campaign events for the Jewish community with representatives of the candidates running for office.[48]
Reza Rasaei, a Yarsani (a religious group also known as Kaka‘i), was executed in August 2024. He had been arrested during the 2022 protests. The authorities forced his family to bury his body outside their community’s cemetery under tight security.[49]
In August 2024, the old Baha’i cemetery in Ahvaz was set on fire by persons unknown. It had been closed by order of the authorities in 2014.[50]
In August 2024, the Special Clerical Court in Hamedan convicted Sunni cleric Mamusta Saber Khodamoradi for “propaganda against the state” and sentenced him to 15 months in prison.[51]
In October 2024, Baha’i Faraz Razavian was sentenced to two years and one day in prison, an 80 million toman fine, and a five year and one day ban on social activities on charges of promoting Baha’ism.[52]
In November 2024, a 20-year-old Jewish man, Arvin Ghahremani, was executed. He had been sentenced to death for killing a Muslim man, acting in self-defence. According to the USCIRF, his trial was not fair, and he was refused the option of paying blood money (diya) because he was a Jew. “Arvin Ghahremani’s execution is an egregious violation of religious freedom demonstrating the precarious status of Jews in Iran despite their official recognition as a community,” reads the USCIRF statement reporting the case.[53]
In November 2024, Christian convert Toumaj Ariankia was tried and convicted for “propaganda against the regime by way of evangelizing Christianity,” “collaboration with hostile powers (Israel, the United Kingdom, and America),” and “membership in groups antagonistic to the regime”. His punishment includes a ten-year prison sentence and a two-year ban on “social activities”.[54]
In November 2024, security agents at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University “violently arrested” a female student after she partially stripped in protest against “abusive enforcement” of Iran’s dress code.[55] According to CNN, the Basij,[56] a volunteer paramilitary force, had reportedly harassed the student on the university campus, ripping her headscarf and clothes.[57] She was eventually declared mentally ill and later released from hospital without any legal action taken against her.[58]
In November 2024, the authorities in Khash County (Sistan and Baluchistan Province) told a local Sunni Baluchi family of eight to convert to Shi‘a Islam in order to get identity papers needed to access government services and benefits.[59]
In November 2024, in a press release, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) stated that over 1,200 Baha’is were on trial or had been convicted, followed by custodial sentences, for their faith. According to the human rights group, Iran’s repression against the Baha’i community has escalated in recent years, particularly against Baha’i women.[60]
In November 2024, a Christian convert, Toomaj Aryan-Kia, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “propagating Christianity”.[61]
In December 2024, Iranian President, Massoud Pezeshkian, put on hold the “hijab and chastity law” before it came into effect, saying that it was “ambiguous and in need of reform”.[62] Under the law, which applies to children as young as 12, women and girls would face greater penalties if they showed hair, forearms and lower legs, with prison terms of up to 15 years. The law also contains a provision that could be used to impose the death penalty for “corruption on earth”.[63]
According to a panel of experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, the proposed legislation constitutes a direct attack on women’s rights and must be repealed.[64] In March 2025, The Guardian newspaper reported that Iran boosted surveillance on women to enforce the existing hijab regulations. According to the British paper, Iranian police are relying on digital technology to detain women who fail to uphold the government’s strict dress code.[65]
In March 2025, police dispersed a demonstration that had called for stricter enforcement of Iran’s dress code regulations.[66] The protesters supported the new, more stringent hijab law passed by Parliament in September 2023[67] and approved by the Council of Guardians in September 2024.[68]
In December 2024, Pastor Matthias (Abdulreza) Ali-Haghnejad was released from prison after serving a six-year sentence on charges of “acting against the security of the country by forming a group and propagating Christianity outside the church and in the house church, and giving information to the enemies of Islam”.[69]
In January 2025, Catholic convert Ghazal Marzban was released from prison after completing one third of her sentence. She had been arrested in November 2024, after protesting the harassment she had to endure since converting to Catholicism seven years earlier. A judge had sentenced her in December 2024 to six months in prison for “being in public places and public view without a religious hijab” and “propaganda against the regime by chanting slogans”.[70]
In February 2024, a joint report by four Christian rights groups (Article 18, Open Doors, Middle East Concern, Christian Solidarity Worldwide) noted that at least 166 Christians were arrested in 2023, up from 134 the previous year. Arrests “came in waves, with just a handful of arrests reported prior to June [2023], then over 100 within the next three months, before a further rash of arrests at Christmas,” reads the report.[71]
In the most recent joint study released in January 2025, the four Christian rights NGOs reported that at least 139 Christians were arrested in 2024 for their religious beliefs or activities, 80 were detained and 77 were charged. About 18 Christians were still in prison for their faith at the end of 2024. According to the same report, Christians were sentenced to more than 250 years in prison in 2024, a sixfold increase compared to 2023.[72]
In January 2025, Iran announced the arrest of 13 Baha’is in Isfahan for proselytising among minors. In a statement, the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit asserted that the arrested Baha’is “were acting illegally and were indirectly promoting their ideological deviation by exploiting children and adolescents”.[73]
In March 2025, singer and musician Mehdi Yarrahi received 74 lashes for singing a song in support of the protest movement that had swept the country in 2022-2023, and for encouraging women not to wear the hijab.[74] In March 2025, a Christian convert, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, suffered a stroke in Tehran’s Evin Prison on the 35th day of a hunger strike that he started in protest against the persecution of Christians in Iran.[75] Previously, the 63-year-old spent almost five years behind bars for practising his religion before he was released in October 2022, only to be rearrested in February 2025.[76]
Prospects for freedom of religion
Religious freedom in Iran remains severely restricted. Christians face significant persecution, frequently charged with propaganda against the government, and acting against national security, which leads to long prison sentences and bans on social activities. For Christians, particularly converts, the overall trend is towards increased persecution and harsh penalties.
This is even truer for the Baha’i community. During the period under review Iran’s largest unregistered religious community faced several waves of severe persecution. As in the past, the Iranian government also targeted the country’s Sunni minority with arrests and executions.
Women and girls faced greater violence in the period under review for opposing mandatory hijab laws, with the morality police brutally enforcing regulations.
Despite the release of some prisoners held on religious grounds, the overall trend in the past few years shows tighter restrictions on religious freedom, with increased persecution and harsh penalties for non-compliance with the laws of the Islamic Republic.
The prospects for religious freedom in Iran remain deeply negative.
Sources
Iran