Protests and religious freedom in Iran

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 20th of October, 2022. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. It’s been more than a month now since Mahsa Amini died in police custody. Officials arrested her for not wearing a head covering to their standards. Soon after her death, demonstrations erupted across the country and around the world.

REICHARD: According to Iran Human Rights based in Norway, police have killed more than 200 protestors over the last four weeks—numbers difficult to confirm. As the unrest approaches its fifth week, what have the protests accomplished? And how are Christians and the church faring? WORLD’s Paul Butler has our report.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: While the US government has been working to reestablish a nuclear deal with Iran, the Biden administration has been relatively soft-spoken on the protests in Iran. But last week, President Biden issued his strongest statement yet while in Irvine, California:

JOE BIDEN: And Iran has to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights. And you know, Mahsa Amini's death…it stunned me, what it awakened in Iran. It's awakened something that I don't think will be quieted in a long long time.

SOUND: [PROTESTS]

HORMOZ SHARIAT: What happened to Masa was a trigger. There are suppressed anger, frustration discussed in the Iranian society, and this was an excuse for all to come out.

Hormoz Shariat came to the United States after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He later placed his faith in Christ and founded Iran Alive—a Christian satellite television ministry that broadcasts into Iran and across the Middle East.

DR. HORMOZ SHARIAT: You know the farmers came out last year and the government arrested some and killed some. Then the retirees came out. The same. The teachers came out a few months ago. Again, the government's answer to all these problems was violence, killing and arrest. So now all these suppressed people groups who had gone into their homes individually, they found a cause, Masa Amini. What they want is not about hijab, they want to change the government.

The current Iranian government is one of the most restrictive in the world. That makes it of particular interest to International Christian Concern, a religious freedom advocacy group. Claire Evans is Senior Assistance Manager.

CLAIRE EVANS: Iranian leaders have a lot of authority, it's a totalitarian country, that is governed by a strictly Islamic code…one of the harshest Islamic codes worldwide.

So it’s no surprise to Evans that the people of Iran have had enough. And unlike earlier protest movements, this one is much more difficult to shut down.

CLAIRE EVANS: What makes this one different, I think is there's no leader. This is very organic. So that makes it harder for the Iranian authorities to even have a response because it's all grassroots. Who do you arrest? Who do you quiet? And the more people that you kill, the more angry people get.

This weekend Iranian security services allegedly beat a 16-year old female student who refused to sing a pro-regime song. She also died from her wounds—adding fuel to the protest fire...both in Iran and around the world.

This woman from Cyprus believes this harsh treatment of women will lead to revolution.

SEGAL: Women [in Iran], they have had enough. Women have been oppressed more than anyone in that country, and they led this revolution, and our brave men also followed.

SOUND: [PROTESTS]

The ultimate outcome of the protests is yet to be seen, but International Christian Concern’s Claire Evans is concerned for the safety of Iranian Christians:

CLAIRE EVANS: …Every time there is a protest, the government has to come up with new ways to crack down new ways to monitor new ways to do surveillance. And the church always suffers with that, because a lot of those tactics get used against them. So we do expect to see pushback…

And it’s Christian women who often bear the harshest treatment.

CLAIRE EVANS: When women are arrested for practicing their faith, the authorities will often call them whores, or assault them, because there's just this understanding within the government structure that women who don't want to wear, the hijab must deserve whatever kind of sexual abuse they're going to experience. So it does open up the doors to a lot of very gender specific persecution that Christian women have to face once they're arrested.

Even in light of 40 plus years of persecution, the Iranian Christian church has grown significantly—often through women stuck at home, stumbling upon the gospel via Christian satellite television programs or the internet.

CLAIRE EVANS: The church is becoming more vocal, more more open about the things that they're expressing and the things they're feeling and the hardships and that's very much a good thing.

Claire Evans sees the protests as an opportunity—not only for the Iranian church, but for the American church as well. First in prayer, but then in other ways as well.

CLAIRE EVANS: There are actually rather large Iranian diasporas here in the US. And they they are very much impacted by what's going on in Iran, these people are often our neighbors, and they're, they're having challenges, just maybe their family is still there, and they're worried. And so it's a really good opportunity to minister to our neighbors…

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 20th of October, 2022. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. It’s been more than a month now since Mahsa Amini died in police custody. Officials arrested her for not wearing a head covering to their standards. Soon after her death, demonstrations erupted across the country and around the world.

REICHARD: According to Iran Human Rights based in Norway, police have killed more than 200 protestors over the last four weeks—numbers difficult to confirm. As the unrest approaches its fifth week, what have the protests accomplished? And how are Christians and the church faring? WORLD’s Paul Butler has our report.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: While the US government has been working to reestablish a nuclear deal with Iran, the Biden administration has been relatively soft-spoken on the protests in Iran. But last week, President Biden issued his strongest statement yet while in Irvine, California:

JOE BIDEN: And Iran has to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights. And you know, Mahsa Amini's death…it stunned me, what it awakened in Iran. It's awakened something that I don't think will be quieted in a long long time.

SOUND: [PROTESTS]

HORMOZ SHARIAT: What happened to Masa was a trigger. There are suppressed anger, frustration discussed in the Iranian society, and this was an excuse for all to come out.

Hormoz Shariat came to the United States after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He later placed his faith in Christ and founded Iran Alive—a Christian satellite television ministry that broadcasts into Iran and across the Middle East.

DR. HORMOZ SHARIAT: You know the farmers came out last year and the government arrested some and killed some. Then the retirees came out. The same. The teachers came out a few months ago. Again, the government's answer to all these problems was violence, killing and arrest. So now all these suppressed people groups who had gone into their homes individually, they found a cause, Masa Amini. What they want is not about hijab, they want to change the government.

The current Iranian government is one of the most restrictive in the world. That makes it of particular interest to International Christian Concern, a religious freedom advocacy group. Claire Evans is Senior Assistance Manager.

CLAIRE EVANS: Iranian leaders have a lot of authority, it's a totalitarian country, that is governed by a strictly Islamic code…one of the harshest Islamic codes worldwide.

So it’s no surprise to Evans that the people of Iran have had enough. And unlike earlier protest movements, this one is much more difficult to shut down.

CLAIRE EVANS: What makes this one different, I think is there's no leader. This is very organic. So that makes it harder for the Iranian authorities to even have a response because it's all grassroots. Who do you arrest? Who do you quiet? And the more people that you kill, the more angry people get.

This weekend Iranian security services allegedly beat a 16-year old female student who refused to sing a pro-regime song. She also died from her wounds—adding fuel to the protest fire...both in Iran and around the world.

This woman from Cyprus believes this harsh treatment of women will lead to revolution.

SEGAL: Women [in Iran], they have had enough. Women have been oppressed more than anyone in that country, and they led this revolution, and our brave men also followed.

SOUND: [PROTESTS]

The ultimate outcome of the protests is yet to be seen, but International Christian Concern’s Claire Evans is concerned for the safety of Iranian Christians:

CLAIRE EVANS: …Every time there is a protest, the government has to come up with new ways to crack down new ways to monitor new ways to do surveillance. And the church always suffers with that, because a lot of those tactics get used against them. So we do expect to see pushback…

And it’s Christian women who often bear the harshest treatment.

CLAIRE EVANS: When women are arrested for practicing their faith, the authorities will often call them whores, or assault them, because there's just this understanding within the government structure that women who don't want to wear, the hijab must deserve whatever kind of sexual abuse they're going to experience. So it does open up the doors to a lot of very gender specific persecution that Christian women have to face once they're arrested.

Even in light of 40 plus years of persecution, the Iranian Christian church has grown significantly—often through women stuck at home, stumbling upon the gospel via Christian satellite television programs or the internet.

CLAIRE EVANS: The church is becoming more vocal, more more open about the things that they're expressing and the things they're feeling and the hardships and that's very much a good thing.

Claire Evans sees the protests as an opportunity—not only for the Iranian church, but for the American church as well. First in prayer, but then in other ways as well.

CLAIRE EVANS: There are actually rather large Iranian diasporas here in the US. And they they are very much impacted by what's going on in Iran, these people are often our neighbors, and they're, they're having challenges, just maybe their family is still there, and they're worried. And so it's a really good opportunity to minister to our neighbors…

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

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