Iran: What does ceasefire collapse mean for Christians?

Hardliners in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) are wanting to keep the US-Iran war going as they believe it will usher in global Islamic rule, a Christian think tank says.

The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution also says that there is an ongoing risk of further arrests and corrupt judicial proceedings against believers in Iran.

Around 4,000 Christians are believed to have been wrongly arrested since the end of February, facing torture and forced confessions. Additionally, lawyers who represent marginalised people, including Christians, are increasingly being arrested.

Lindisfarne’s Martin Parsons told en: “The hardliners, including the IRGC, have quite deliberately provoked the USA by attacking shipping in the Straits of Hormuz because they want to restart the war, which they believe is a prelude to the return of the Mahdi [‘the Guided One’] to earth, who incidentally they believe will crush Christianity and impose Islamic rule across the entire earth.”

Many Shia Muslims believe the Mahdi is Muhammad al-Mahdi, the 12th Imam, who was born in 869 CE and went into a state of “occultation” (divine conceal-ment) by God’s will. They await his return from this hiding to restore justice and establish the rule of God. Sunni Muslims, by contrast, believe he will be an entirely new figure born at the end of time.

Parsons added: “As with all such situations it is almost impossible to get accurate information about what is happening to Iranian Christians, but the hardliners are now very powerful and in many respects appear to be unconstrained, so we should sadly expect an even stronger crackdown on Christians as a result of the breakdown in the ceasefire agreement.”