Iranian Christians forced to worship in secret

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(06-27) 04:00 PDT Teheran --
Illyas, 20, precariously spans two worlds.

At home, he's a god-fearing Christian who have on a Ag cross around his neck, reads the Book and sings anthems praising Jesus Of Nazareth Christ. In public, he is a pious Moslem who goes to regular masjid prayers.

Illyas and his parents - they asked a newsman not to advert the household name to guarantee their safety - had been practicing Muslims until they watched a spiritual telecasting programme beamed by artificial satellite from Reseda (Los Angeles County). At that clip last year, Illyas's female parent called a hot line figure of Islamic Republic Of Iran for Jesus Of Nazareth Ministries, prayed with a counsellor and soon accepted Jesus Jesus as her savior. Illyas and his stepfather quickly followed.

Islam is the state faith of Muslim Republic Of Islamic Republic Of Iran - 98 percentage of the nation's 66 million dwellers are Muslims - and Islamism have governed most facets of life since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran. Defeated with the deficiency of societal autonomies since churchmen assumed power, Illyas states his household felt compelled to look for other Negro spiritual answers.

"We were looking for a religion that offered the reassurance of freedom," he said.

Although there are no statistics on how many Iranians have got got converted to Christian Religion in recent years, functionaries at such as Christian telecasting stations as SAT-7-PARS state that in the past two old age they have received a inundation of e-mails and one thousands of telephone set phone calls from Iranians. With the coming of artificial satellite television, they say, Christian Religion is on the rise, with some Iranians even undergoing cloak-and-dagger transitions at Assyrian churches, said Saint David Harder, communication theory director at SAT-7-PARS' Republic Of Cyprus headquarters.

"Certainly across the full part many people are spiritually thirsty. Persian Christians themselves often have got very small entree to instruction stuffs that tin aid them in their Negro spiritual growth," said Harder. "Satellite telecasting supplies a agency through which Iranians, who have got got often never had the chance to come in a Christian church or even to cognize a Christian, to larn more than about this faith."

Even though artificial satellite dishes have been officially banned in Islamic Republic Of Iran since 1995, they herd metropolis rooftops and the authorities looks not able to command what Iranians ticker at home, many perceivers say.

An editor of an independent newspaper in Tehran, who asked not to be named, faults artificial satellite telecasting channels for manipulating viewing audience into converting to Christianity.

"Iranians are looking for alleviation and proselytizers are taking advantage of that," he said. "I stand up by the right to take up a new religion, but there's a barbarous Western secret plan to foment a wider cultural East-West warfare and demonize Islamism in the process."

Even though the nation's penal codification makes not mandate the decease punishment for apostasy, the law could change if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have his way. In February, he introduced statute law that would mandate executing for apostates.

"Life for so-called apostates in Islamic Republic Of Islamic Republic Of Iran have never been easy, but it could go literally impossible if Iran go throughs this new bill of exchange penal code," said Chief Joseph Grieboski, the president of the Institute on Religion and Populace Policy in Washington. "For anyone who darings inquiry the regime's spiritual ideology, there could soon be no room to reason - only death."

Some churchmen believe the migration of Iranians to Christian Religion is symptomatic of defeat with Islamism more than involvement in another faith.

"If you coerce faith down people's throats, it do them less religious, not more," said Mohammad Muhammad Ali Abtahi, a reformer churchman and Iran's former frailty president.

The curbing of societal freedoms in the name of Islam, such as as compulsory caput scarves for women and a crackdown on manner and Horse Opera music, have persisted since 1979, and have driven many immature Iranians - 70 percentage of the population is under 30 - away from Islam, Abtahi says.

Many Iranians are also frustrated by a dead economic system despite the state having the world's fourth-largest oil reserves. Inflation is nearly 19 percent; unemployment is at a record 20 percent. Many incrimination the economical state of affairs on faulty policies and the engagement of faith in governance.

Moreover, Ahmadinejad have authorized a humongous 700 percentage addition in authorities disbursement for "Islamic spiritual activities" in 2009, according to Rooz, a Irani news Web site. Ahmadinejad have also proposed increasing the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance budget from $2.2 million to $16.6 million for 2009.

Last year, the state financed a $5 million movie called "Jesus, the Spirit of God," an Muslim version of the life of Jesus. The film pictures Jesus Of Nazareth as a tormented oracle who was not crucified or resurrected. Instead his adherent Jude Iscariot, was crucified in his place. This premiss is based on the instructions of the Koran and the putative Gospels of Barnabas, a adherent of Jesus. It will now be recycled in a 20-episode series aired on state-run television.

Even though manager Nader Talebzadeh states he wanted to advance a duologue between Muslims and Christians, some Western critics called it a parochial effort to advance Islamism by spreading misinformation about Christianity.

Meanwhile, Illyas states he will go on to drill his new religion.

"I'll have got to maintain it a secret as long as I dwell in Iran," he said. "There's no other way."
Apostasy and Islamism

Leaving Islamism for another religion, or apostasy, is considered one of the most serious law-breakings a Moslem can commit, with a suggested penalty of beheading. There is no punishment for a Moslem who kills an apostate, according to Islamic Shariah law.

Most Moslem nations, however, make not mandate the decease punishment for those who convert to another religion, and many accept the U.N. Universal Joint Declaration of Person Rights that warrants all people the right to drill the faith of their choice.

But that have not stopped individual Judges from doling out the decease sentence and vigilance men from threatening, whipping and violent death converts in Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabian Arabia, Turkey, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia and Kenya, according to Person Rights Watch.

Just this week, two Algerians who converted from Islamism to Christian Religion went on trial on complaints that they illegally promoted the Christian faith, according to The Associated Press. Algeria's fundamental law lets freedom of worship. But a 2006 law strictly modulates how faiths other than Islamism can be practiced.

In 2006, Abdul Rahman, a convert to Christianity, was sentenced to decease by an Afghani court. After burning worldwide protests, he was released and allowed to fly to Italy.

In Iran, Mehdi Dibaj was imprisoned for his Christian beliefs for 10 old age between 1983 and 1993. After Dibaj received the decease punishment from an Persian court, he won his freedom after an international call that included Pope Toilet Alice Paul II. Soon after his release, Dibaj was abducted and slain.

- Anuj Chopra

Western acts upon

There are numerous U.S. and European telecasting and radiocommunication spiritual programmes beamed into Islamic Republic Of Iran by satellite:

-- Persian Christian Television Channel - a registered charity based in the United Kingdom ( ).

-- Radio Mojdeh - also based in the United Kingdom ( )

-- Persian Christian Radio of Mission Viejo, Orange County ( ).

-- SAT-7-PARS, a 24-hour Christian artificial satellite station based in Cyprus.

- Anuj Chopra

Chronicle Foreign Service newsman Anuj Chopra visited Islamic Republic Of Iran early this twelvemonth on a grant from the Joseph Pulitzer Center on Crisis Coverage in Washington. E-mail Chopra at .