(Morning Star News) – Arrests of Christians in Iran usually spike as Christmas approaches, but this year has been especially severe, sources said.
More than 150 Christians have been detained across the officially Shia Muslim country in the last month, and arrests are expected to continue.
“The current situation has been described by some as unprecedented,” Miles Windsor, advocacy and development manager at Middle East Concern (MEC), told Morning Star News. “There are a huge number of arrests and detentions.”
An uptick in arrests is expected around Christmas, Windsor said, when many Iranians are attracted to Christianity and the government seeks to deter interest through intimidation.
“Recently it seems there is definitely a coordinated and determined campaign to decimate the Christian community and to spread fear and intimidation,” Windsor said.
This year has been especially severe, however, according to MEC. Some analysts speculate that security branches, fearful of funding cuts, are trying to show their effectiveness and justify payments from the government by showing how many Christians they can arrest.
Among them, Amir Taleipour, 39, and his wife Mahnaz Harati, 36, were arrested in front of their 7-year-old daughter by intelligence agents who raided their home in Mashhad, northeast Iran on Dec. 6. The couple has not been…
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