For being Christians, the spouses were jailed in Iran by the authorities. A 63-year-old man Homayoun Zhave with advanced Parkinson’s disease, and his wife Sara Ahmadi were recently imprisoned.
Zhave was sent along with his wife Ahmadi and two other Christians to the Elvin prison for practicing his Christian faith in a house, reports the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIRF) on 13 August.
The spouses are Persian and were born Muslim, but decided to convert to Christianity.
Both were first arrested in June 2019, when authorities accused Sara of leading a house church and her husband of being a member of it. Two months later, Zhaveh was released on bail.
In November 2020, Zhaveh was sentenced to two years in prison, accused of belonging to “organizations that aim to disrupt national security.” His sentence was upheld in December, and shortly after, the Court rejected his appeal for a new trial.
Sara currently has an eight-year prison sentence and Zhaveh two years.
In addition to them, the Iranian authorities jailed Joseph Shahbazian, 58, an Armenian Christian who is now serving a 10-year sentence, and Malihe Nazari, a Christian Persian woman who was also born into a Muslim home and who was sentenced to 6 years. from prison
The number of Christians who are often jailed for their faith in Iran is on the rise. Asia News reported that in the first 6 months of 2022, authorities arrested 58 people and handed down 25 convictions, up from 15 in 2021.
In Iran, Armenians are “ethnic Christian” and Muslim converts are not recognized as Christians and are often persecuted and accused of violating national security when they practice their faith at home, as in the case of Zhaveh and his wife.
Article 18, a non-profit organization that defends persecuted Christians in Iran, pointed out that it does not have the exact number of Muslims who have converted to Christianity, but that according to figures published in a study, it could be close to 1 million people.