On 18 May, a court upheld a verdict issued against Iranian Christians Saheb Fadaie and Fatemeh Bakhteri for ‘spreading propaganda against the regime’.
Both were given prison sentences, and Mr Fadaie received an additional two years of internal exile in Nehbandan, a remote area close to the border with Afghanistan. Local sources reported that the verdict confirming the sentences claimed that discussions of Christian doctrine held in house churches were considered attacks on Islam.
During their final appeal hearing in January, Mr Fadaie and Ms Bakhteri were asked by presiding judges Hassan Babaee and Ahmad Zargar to renounce their faith, but had refused to do so.
Relinquish
Fadaie is serving a ten-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison, following his 2016 arrest along with fellow members of the Church of Iran denomination (Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, Mr Mohammadreza Omidi and Mr Yasser Mossayebzadeh). He was arrested during a series of raids by security agents on Christian homes in the city of Rasht. In July 2017, all four received ten-year sentences ‘for acting against national security’ by ‘promoting Zionist Christianity’. Their sentences were upheld in May 2018.
For over a year prior to her sentencing, Fatemeh Bakhteri, 37, had been subjected to harassment by security agents and was summoned for interrogation on at least one occasion.
