source:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/05/08/in-iran-covert-=
christian-converts-live-with-secrecy-and-fear_print.htm
Illyas, 20, precariously straddles two worlds. At home with his
family, he's a devout Christian who wears a silver cross around his
neck, devotionally reads the Bible, and, on the Sabbath, hums hymns of
praise to Jesus. Easter and Christmas are celebrated with homemade
grape wine, even though alcohol is banned in Iran.
Publicly, though, Illyas is a devout Muslim. Before leaving home to
attend university cl*****, he removes the cross. He falsely tells his
teachers about reading the Koran regularly since, he says, expressing
fealty to Islam is necessary to land a good job in Iran. And he
regularly goes to Friday prayers at Tehran University, where, if
necessary, he joins in chants of Marg-bar Amrika (Death to America)=97
although he says that he doesn't hate America and, in fact, hopes to
move there someday.
Illyas and his mother and stepfather=97for their safety, their family
name cannot be revealed=97had been Muslims (as are 98 percent of the
nation's 66 million citizens). That changed a year ago, when they were
drawn to a seductively passionate voice on a satellite TV channel
imploring Iranians to embrace Christianity. On hearing the voice,
Illyas's mother called the channel's hotline number. She prayed with
the counselor on the phone, she says, making a personal commitment to
Jesus as her savior. Later, Illyas and his stepfather did the same, as
the counselor from California's Iran for Christ Ministries led them in
prayer.
The counselor was able to put Illyas in touch with some local Iranians=97
also discreet believers=97who could provide a copy of the Bible. "We
were looking for a faith that offered the reassurance of freedom,''
says Illyas, who asked to be interviewed in a public restaurant in
Tehran instead of his house.
Islam is the state religion of Iran, governing most aspects of life
since the 1979 Islamic revolution. But, exasperated with the obsessive
atmosphere of Islamic purity in Iran since the revolution and the
subsequent curbing of social freedoms, Illyas says, his family felt
compelled to look for other spiritual answers, even at considerable
risk.
Leaving Islam for another religion, or apostasy, has long invited
reprisals from the Iranian government, forcing the likes of Illyas and
his family into absolute secrecy, practicing their new beliefs only in
the privacy of their home. In Iran, Christians are prohibited from
seeking Muslim converts, although there has been tolerance for those
who are born into Christian families.
The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has introduced
legislation before the Iranian Majlis that would mandate the death
penalty for apostates from Islam, a sign that it will brook no
proselytizing in the country. "Life for so-called apostates in Iran
has never been easy, but it could become literally impossible if Iran
p***** this new draft penal code," says Joseph Grieboski, the
president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy in
Wa****ngton. "For anyone who dares question the regime's religious
ideology, there could soon be no room to argue=97only death.''
Minorities. Grieboski points out that the text of the draft penal code
uses the word hadd (prescribed punishment), which explicitly sets
death as a fixed, irrevocable punishment. He worries that it could be
applied to religious and ethnic minorities like Christians, Bahais,
Jews, and Azeris by treating them as apostates.
Articles 225 to 227 of the draft penal code define two kinds of
apostates: fetri, or an innate apostate=97who has at least one Muslim
parent, identifies as a Muslim after puberty, and later renounces
Islam; and melli, or parental apostate=97who is a non-Muslim at birth
but later embraces Islam, only to renounce it again. The draft code
says outright that punishment for an innate apostate is death.
However, parental apostates have three days after their sentencing to
recant their beliefs. If they don't, they will be executed according
to their sentence. It isn't clear when this bill will be passed,
though Grieboski says, "International pressure and attention=97in large
part due to our work=97has significantly slowed the parliament's
progress.''
In the past, apostasy could draw a range of punishments, from
imprisonment to death, under legal practices that were more ambiguous
than the draft statutes. In one instance that drew international
attention, Mehdi Dibaj, an Iranian convert, was held in prison for his
Christian beliefs for 10 years starting in 1984. He received the death
sentence at the end of 1993. But he was released from prison in
January 1994 after an international publicity campaign by Haik
Hovsepian Mehr, a prominent Christian pastor in Iran. A few days after
Dibaj's release, Hovsepian Mehr was abducted in Tehran, and his body,
with 26 stab wounds, was found secretly buried in a Muslim graveyard.
Six months later, Dibaj, freed but still under a pending death
sentence, was abducted and murdered.
Considering the perils, Muslim Iranians turn to satellite television
(though officially prohibited), radio, and the Internet to talk about
faiths other than Islam. Some names include the Iranian Christian
Television Channel, run by a registered charity based in the United
Kingdom; Radio Mojdeh; and Iranian Christian Radio.
SAT-7 PARS, a Middle Eastern Christian satellite station headquartered
in Cyprus, began broadcasting in Farsi to Iran in the fall of 2002,
under the name of Iranian Christian Broadcasting. In late 2006, it
launched the 24-hour Farsi-language satellite television channel.
SAT-7 PARS says it receives hundreds of letters and E-mails every week
from Iranian viewers=97many of them young=97expressing interest in
Christianity. David Harder, the communications manager at SAT-7 in
Cyprus, says the channel tries to answer all questions, but it is a
nonproselytizing entity. "Iranian Christians themselves often have
very little access to teaching materials that can help them in their
spiritual growth," says Harder. "Satellite television provides a means
through which Iranians, who have often never had the op****tunity to
enter a church or even to know a Christian, can learn more about this
faith."
Despite the Koran's injunction that "there is no compulsion in
religion," issues of religious freedom have persisted since the
Islamic revolution of 1979, and that is driving the young away from
Islam, says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist cleric and former vice
president of Iran. "If you force religion down people's throats, it
makes them less religious, not more." Another analyst based in Tehran
agrees but senses a western conspiracy in proselytizing through mass
media. He blames satellite television channels for emotionally
manipulating Iranian viewers into changing their religion. "Iranians
are looking for a balm, and proselytizers are taking advantage of
that,'' he says. "There's a vicious western plot to foment a wider
cultural East-West war and demonize Islam in the process.''
Demonizing Christianity. Ironically, these days, a recent Iranian
film, Jesus, the Spirit of God, is being accused of demonizing
Christianity. It's a new film on Jesus told from an Islamic
perspective. Jesus, regarded as only a prophet, did not die on the
cross and was not resurrected. The disciple Judas Iscariot is
crucified in his place, according to the film. This premise is based
on the teachings of the Koran and the Gospel of Barnabas, a book not
included in the Christian Bible and in which the prophet Muhammad
appears.
The $5 million film, funded by Iranian state broadcasting, is intended
to promote a dialogue between Muslims and Christians, according to
director Nader Talebzadeh. It received a tepid reception in theaters
across Iran and will now be recycled as a 20-episode series on state-
run national television this year.
Mona, a 24-year-old Assyrian Christian residing in more affluent
northern Tehran, saw the film and said its "jaundiced'' interpretation
made her cringe. She's not very religious, she says, though she
acknowledges there is enough freedom to practice her faith because she
was born into a Christian family. But she remains disillusioned with
the fact that Islam pervades almost every aspect of normal life in
Iran.
She says she was recently rejected for a job as a flight attendant
with Air Iran, the state-run airline, because she hadn't ever read the
Koran. "Religion without the freedom to reject it is not a true
religion," she says in her living room, her head bereft of a scarf.
"It makes life very claustrophobic."
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