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.”

“Iran’s ‘systematic’ disinformation about religious minorities risks ‘profound harms’ – report,” Article 18, September 2, 2024:

The Iranian authorities’ “systematic” and “targeted” dissemination of disinformation about religious minorities, including Christians, has been highlighted in a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

The report, ‘Misinformation and Disinformation: Implications for Freedom of Religion of Belief’, released last month, says disinformation about Jews, Sunni Muslims, Gonabadi Sufis, Christian converts and Baha’is in Iran is “often” disseminated through state media.

“Iranian state-linked media have claimed falsely or without evidence that … Christian converts from Islam are part of a ‘Zionist’ network that poses a national security risk,” the report notes, adding that “such false claims create a restrictive environment for FoRB [freedom of religion or belief] in Iran in the context of arrests, imprisonment and sometimes executions of Baha’is, Gonabadi Sufis, Christians, and members of the Erfan-e-Halgheh movement.”

The report, which also includes examples from China, Russia, Pakistan and India, says the spreading of false claims about religious minorities represents a “global challenge to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), with social media and the Internet allowing the claims to “spread faster and wider than ever before”.

USCIRF warns that government misinformation and disinformation can cause “profound harms” by “amplify[ing] intolerance from individuals who may believe the content of these campaigns and harass, intimidate, or threaten the targeted religious groups”, “increas[ing] the risk of violence that targets religious minorities” and creating “an environment enabling violations of their international legal right to FoRB”….