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According to reports, the transfer of several Christian converts imprisoned in Evin, including Behnam Akhlik and Babak Hosseinzadeh, to a prison in another city is on the agenda.
At least these two Christian citizens have been asked to pay one million tomans as a transfer fee, but they have refused to accept it.
These Christian citizens are enduring five years of imprisonment due to their religious belief and peaceful ideological activity.
Last week, these Christians were transferred to the dispatch unit, where they were treated very insultingly and humiliatingly. On that day, the transfer was not done, but the next day, these Christian converts were again transferred to a room and waited for five hours. Finally, the officers told them that due to the incompleteness of the documents, the deportation will not be carried out today, but they will take action in the near future.
Currently, 15 Christians are being imprisoned in Ward 8 of Evin Prison, and it seems that this action is intended to put pressure on them and disperse them in different cities and prisons and prevent a large number of Christian prisoners from gathering in one prison. Is.
Transfer and deportation, one of the examples of abuse of prisoners
Hossein Ahmadi Niaz, a lawyer living in the Netherlands, who has been in charge of the defense of prisoners of conscience, including Nasser Noord Goltepe, a Christian convert, says in this regard, “One of the examples of torture and torture of religious prisoners and Christian converts in Iran and their mental and psychological torture The government of Iran (judiciary and security institutions) is transferring or deporting prisoners from one prison to another because in practice they will face many problems and sufferings.
Regarding these problems, he says, “In order to obtain leave, parole, etc., one should pay attention to the text of the power of attorney for granting the prison of origin to the prison of destination, because the judges overseeing the prison and the security institutions are responsible for causing mental and emotional torture and torture to the prisoner. The requests of these prisoners are placed in long administrative processes and with the excuse that it is not mentioned in the case of granting this matter (for example, leave or parole) “we cannot take action directly” and there is a need to obtain inquiries from the source and it takes months. Time is lost for this inquiry, or the prosecutors and prison officials easily announce that the “deposit of bail” has not been clarified here (the destination), and this causes the requests to be rejected.
Judge to Christian converts: “You are apostates and deserve to be executed”
Mr. Akhlik and Hosseinzadeh, along with seven other Christian citizens, were arrested during raids on their houses and home churches in Bahman and March 2017.
Behnam Akhlik and Babak Hosseinzadeh were arrested in Rasht on March 4, 2017. These Christian citizens were accused of “acting against the security of the country by forming a house church and propagating evangelical and Zionist Christianity.”
The government of Iran has repeatedly sent Christian converts to prison with such vague accusations and without providing evidence. In a letter to the Iranian government, a group of UN reporters expressed their deep concern over the vague accusations against Christian converts and the “systematic suppression” of Christians.
These Christian citizens were detained and interrogated in Rasht Intelligence Detention Center for 12 days. After that, they were transferred to Pol Rasht Prison No. 2 and were detained there for 11 days.
Behnam Akhlik and Babak Hosseinzadeh were released on March 27, 2017, each with a bail of 150 million tomans.
The first court session was held on August 2, 2018 under the chairmanship of the comparison judge. In this very short meeting, the comparative judge without any explanation increased the bail of 5 of the defendants to one billion and five hundred million tomans and they were directly transferred from the court to Evin prison.
On 21 Mehr 98, the last session of the primary court was held and the detainees were sent to the court. In this meeting, the sentence of 5 years of imprisonment was announced and communicated to them. None of the defendants in the case were ever allowed to speak in court. The behavior of Judge Moghiseh was very harsh and insulting towards the Christian defendants and they were repeatedly told that “You are wrong people, you are apostates and you deserve to be executed.” Don’t say anything at all.” All the defendants protested the verdict.
Behnam Amakhli and Babak Hosseinzadeh along with seven other Christian converts namely Abdolreza Ali Haqnejad, Shahrouz Islamdost, Mehdi Khatibi, Khalil Dehghanpour, Hossein Kadivar, Kamal Nomanian and Mohammad Fafadar – all members of a house church called “Church of Iran” in They are from the city of Rasht, who were accused of “acting against national security” in Mehr, 2018, and each was sentenced to five years in prison.
