Iran Is No Longer Pretending: Its Brutality Is in the Open

Iran is no longer pretending. Its brutality is on full display as over 12,000 freedom-loving Iranians have been gunned down in the streets.

But Iran’s vile attacks on its own citizens have been most felt by its beleaguered Christian community in recent years. The Islamic Republic has been intensifying a brutal campaign against Christians – especially converts – using arrests, torture, crushing prison sentences, merciless home raids, and even executions to intimidate entire communities. The message is clear: If you follow Christ, you are a criminal. The regime is fearful of a rising Christian population.

Conflicts with “the West,” or allies of the West, only deepen the persecution. Iran’s clash with Israel and the United States triggered a brutal crackdown on Christian converts, whom it brands as Western sympathizers. After the ceasefire, authorities arrested at least 54 Christians across 21 cities, accusing them of espionage. The state media’s dangerous smears have turned an entire faith community into targets of regime repression.

After the conflict, Iran’s parliament also quickly advanced a new espionage law that carries capital punishment under vague standards, handing the regime expansive authority to criminalize and crush anyone it deems disloyal.

Iran ranks as the 10th worst country in the world for the “most extreme persecution” of Christians according to the World Watch List.

The facts are staggering. In 2024 alone (2025 is not yet publicly available), Iran sentenced 96 Christians to imprisonment – six times the number of Christians than the year before. Their so-called crimes? Meeting in house churches. Sharing Christian literature. Studying the Bible. Iranian courts cynically label these peaceful acts as security threats to justify repression. Many are sentenced to some of the world’s worst prisons, such as the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran.

In early 2026, Christian convert Nayereh Arjaneh began serving a five-year prison sentence after being accused of “promoting deviant propaganda” simply for attending a religious seminar. Her husband was sentenced as well. Families like theirs are torn apart while authorities subject believers to brutal interrogations, abuse, and degrading treatment designed to break their faith.

In 2025, an appeals court upheld sentences exceeding seven years each for five Christian converts whose only offense was participating in religious training and house church gatherings – conduct the state absurdly branded as “propaganda activity contrary to Islamic law.” One of the believers experienced physical torture.

The danger faced by religious minorities was exposed in one of Iran’s most chilling acts. In November 2024, the regime executed 20-year-old Iranian Jew Arvin Ghahremani after he defended himself during a knife attack. Despite clear evidence that he acted to save his own life, Iranian courts convicted him of murder – because he was Jewish. Discriminatory pressure blocked efforts to resolve the case – and the execution went forward.

This is how Iran rules: vague laws, weaponized courts, and irreversible punishments used to crush belief and silence dissent. Families are destroyed. Lives are lost. Fear is not a side effect of the system – it is the system.

We’ve freed Christian pastors from torture and death in Iran before, and we are mobilizing our global offices to demand international action to defend the Christians suffering now. We’re preparing new legal submissions and oral interventions at the U.N. and on Capitol Hill in this dire moment of need.