Aside from the ruthless crack-down on protests over the death of Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini in police custody, 2022 was another year in which Iranian Christians continued to face harassment, arrests and imprisonment only for practicing their faith, a new report of four non-profit organi-zations advocating for persecuted Christians in the world says.
Christians along with other religious minorities in the Islamic Republic continued to be systematically deprived of their right to freely practice their religion,  according to the 2023 Report on “Violations to the rights of Christians in Iran” released  by Article18, a London-based ONG, dedicated to the protection and promotion of religious freedom in Iran, with its partners Open Doors International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and Middle East Concern.
The 25-page study, in its fifth edition, was issued in recent days to coincide with the 44th anniversary of the murder of Anglican pastor Arastoo Sayyah, the first Christian killed for his  faith in the Islamic Republic,  just eight days after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in February 1979.134 Christians arrested in 2022 for faith related issues.