The U.S. State Department has classified Iran as a “country of particular concern” for “having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

“Christian converts incommunicado month after re-arrest,” Article 18, October 17, 2024:

Three Christian converts arrested in the northern Iranian city of Nowshahr last month remain in detention in an unknown location nearly a month after their arrest.

Jahangir Alikhani, Hamed Malamiri, and Gholam Eshaghi, who were previously arrested at Christmas last year and were already facing charges relating to their Christian faith, were arrested on 23 and 24 September by intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

They are believed to have been taken to Sari, the provincial capital, which is three hours’ drive from Nowshahr, but their families have not heard from them since their arrest, while Article18 understands they have been denied access to a lawyer.

The three were among 20 Christians first arrested by armed agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence in Nowshahr and nearby Chalus in coordinated raids on their homes in the early hours of the morning after Christmas, when the agents filmed themselves as they confiscated personal items including identity papers, Bibles and other Christian literature….