In Iran, Christmas for some Christians is a dark cell, in one of the country’s most notorious prisons, held without charges, aware that they were locked away only for their faith with no prospect for indictment that would enable them to defend themselves, deprived of rights even more than their liberty.
This is the case of an Armenian man, one of a hundred Christians arrested last summer and held in Evin prison, north of Tehran, who, after four months, is still unaware of his fate, with the only certainty of spending the holiday away from his family.
The story of 35-year-old Hakop Gochumyan is relayed by Article18, an advocacy group seeking to protect and promote religious freedom in Iran and on behalf of its persecuted Christians.
The Armenian national was visiting Iran with his wife Elissa, who has dual Armenian-Iranian citizenship, and their two children. On 15 August, the two adults were arrested in Pardis, on the outskirts of Tehran.
According to some witnesses, the couple, with their children aged seven and 10, were at a friend’s house for lunch when a dozen plainclothes agents from the Ministry of Intelligence burst in and took them away.