"Christians are being persecuted," you may have heard the Danish European Mission say on stands, in our magazine or at a meeting in your church, mission house or youth organization. It's true, but the statement - and the persecution - has more nuances than one sentence can contain.
Persecution has many forms and faces. It can come in the form of poor grades at school, restrictions on employment, social exclusion, violence, death threats or even attacks to kill. Persecution can come from friends, family, religious groups and institutions or the government. Often it's several things at once - but persecution of Christians looks different from person to person, community to community, country to country.
This article will focus on what persecution looks like when it comes from the government side. There are always nuances, and in some places, a friendly police chief will act more leniently towards Christians than the police chief in the neighboring town - even though they are subject to the same set of rules. But in the big picture, there are still some features we need to look at.
One of the most important things to know about modern Iran and modern Turkey is that both are built on Islam. Islam is simply the cornerstone and the glue of society. It's what binds people together - and ostracizes those who are not part of the club. This is key to understand.
Turkey
Let's look at Turkey first.
A Turk is by definition a Muslim. It is expected when you present yourself as a Turk. The statement itself A Christian Turk will be seen as a contradiction in terms by many Turks - because a Turk is a Muslim. Period.
When Kemal Atatürk created modern Turkey in the aftermath of World War I, it was not with a strict and rigid interpretation of Islam, but Islam still became the common denominator of society and Christian minorities were regularly discriminated against, attacked and displaced.
The Armenian Genocide, which is still denied by official Turkey, happened before Atatürk, but was a landmark event for Christian minorities. Since then, the Greek Orthodox population has also been targeted, and other minorities have also been discriminated against and attacked. The Armenian Genocide set the tone for the country's anti-Christian attitude that has permeated its government ever since. It is also the government attitude that is a contributing factor to the many Christian missionaries expelled from Turkey in recent years.
When describing nationalism in Turkey, Turkish professor Cemal Salman says that "the basis of national identity is, on the one hand, a legal and political identity tied to attachment to the homeland and citizenship and, on the other hand, an existentialist definition of identity that is based on ethnicity and is unique. This view, based on the rejection of ethnic and cultural diversity, will make the only acceptable type of citizen and the essence of the Turkish state is in the Turkish and Sunni sphere."
In practice, this means that a real Turk is neither Armenian, Syrian, Kurd, Greek, Bulgarian or any other religion other than the common Turkish understanding of Sunni Islam. What's interesting is that such an attitude creates a distance from - and incipient exclusion of - anyone who falls outside the norm - Shiites, Zarathrustas, atheists and of course Christians.
"In Turkey, this means that a non-Muslim policeman or official is unthinkable" - Caleb
"In Turkey, this means that a non-Muslim policeman or official is unthinkable," says Caleb*, who has worked with Turks for several years. "Muslims who come to faith may find they are refused permission to change their religious affiliation on their ID card. Christians may find themselves paying more for apartments, getting fired or losing jobs."
There is nothing that can be done about this discrimination, says Muslim lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz, who has written a report on the Turkish state's treatment of minorities.
"When Turkey tried to join the EU, the ruling party made certain concessions for religious minorities and religious freedom increased. But the government never tried to change the basic attitude towards minorities and create real legal security for the country's minorities."
And that's one of the best ways to describe the opposition to the Christian minority - lack of legal certainty. It leads to arbitrary practices depending on which official, police officer or lawyer is handling the case. If Christians are not treated fairly, it will rarely be taken seriously and fought by the state.
"If Christians are not treated fairly, it will rarely be taken seriously and fought by the state"
The police and intelligence services keep an eye on missionaries, church leaders and prominent Christians and keep track of what they do. If a foreign missionary ever becomes too prominent or the government gets fed up with them, they will be given an N-82 stamp and told they are a danger to national security and must leave the country. Since 2019, more than 60 missionaries have been kicked out of Turkey with little chance to appeal and disprove the charges, according to Middle East Concern.
"It's a fear for those of us who work in the country," says Adam*, who has worked in Turkey for many years. "It's a country's sovereign right to reject foreigners, but it's done on a basis that seems to be at odds with the human rights courts. Maybe Turkey can get a reprimand from there if it continues, but in the short term, it looks more difficult. If I'm a Turkish judge trying a case where my government tells me that the defendant is a threat to national security, while the defense lawyer tells you that his client is good enough, then I follow the government. Because if you're on this list with an N-82, you're in the company of leaders of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and other terrorists who should not enter the country."
The Turkish government harasses both local Christians by not offering them jobs and a lack of legal protection, while actively kicking out foreign missionaries. Missionaries often play a prominent role in the Turkish church, so Turkish believers also suffer from the expulsions. But the lack of legal security and insecurity for local Christians is one of the ways the government can persecute Christians.
Attacked in 2006 and 2007
The lack of legal security and protection for the Christian minority had serious consequences in four cases in 2006 and 2007. Members of the Christian minority were attacked in four different cities and 5 people were killed. The attacks give an indication of what it means for Christians when the government fails to protect the Christian minority.
On February 5, 2006, a 16-year-old boy rose up and shot and killed Roman Catholic priest Andrea Santoro during a mass in Trabzon. The boy was convicted of the murder, but the investigation was quickly closed down as the prosecution decided early on that he had acted alone.
11 months later, Turkish-Armenian journalist and editor-in-chief Hrant Dink was gunned down in front of the Agos newspaper in Istanbul in broad daylight. This time, Turkish human rights lawyers pressured the prosecution to investigate further.
While the trial was underway, another attack occurred. This time it was in Malatya, where the target was the Christian publishing house Zirve. Here, two Turkish Christians, Ugur Yüksel and Necati Aydin, were brutally tortured and then murdered along with German Tilman Geske.
The trials for the murders of Zirve and Dink showed that they were well planned. There was a network that had been behind the attacks and in the following months attacked several locations. In Izmir, priest Adriano Franchini was stabbed but survived and in several places in the country police prevented attacks. During the trials, it emerged that the intelligence services had information about plans to kill Dink more than a year before the murder and that the perpetrators in Malatya had been planning the attack for over half a year.
"It's inconceivable that the intelligence services didn't know about the plans when they have taken so long to make. In addition, both Hrant Dink and those murdered in the Malatya massacre were closely monitored by multiple intelligence agencies for years and months before their deaths. It would have been impossible for these intelligence services to monitor the victims so closely without also noticing the plans against them," writes Orhan Kemal Cengiz.
But the charges were laid against several of the alleged Gülen movement members, who were already disliked by the government. After that, the case was buried, and although the assassins have been punished, the police happened to be absent from all the attacks. The same was true when South Korean missionary Jinwook Kim was killed on the street in Diyarbekir in November 2019. The Turkish government and police have at best turned their backs while the Christian minority was attacked.
Government persecution in Turkey consists of a lack of legal security for Christians and a lack of protection for Christians, while Christians are also kept out of public jobs and risk surveillance by the intelligence services. Turkey does not have a public and pronounced agenda against Christians, but the strong focus on the common understanding of Sunni Islam as the basics for a Turk leads in practice to discrimination against the Christian minority.
Iran
That was Turkey. Now to its neighbor to the southeast - Iran.
A landmark event in Iranian history is the 1979 revolution. The Shah and his Western-inspired liberal regime were overthrown by Ayatollah Khomenei, who gained the support of the people to create an Islamic Republic based on Sharia law and the Shiite understanding of Islam.
Before the revolution, Iran was perceived as a society in which Christians and other minorities enjoyed good conditions, relative freedom and basic legal certainty. Article 23 of the constitution reads: "Investigations into the beliefs of individuals are prohibited and no one shall suffer physical harm or be arrested for holding a particular belief." That article still applies and the three minorities of Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians are in theory protected by the constitution. But the law is elastic in the sense that Sharia law is now the additional legal basis, so when the law is not specific, the judge can rule based on Sharia law. And they often do. A report on the persecution of Christians in Iran by a group of Christian parliamentarians in the UK with the help of the Danish European Mission's partner ELAM states that 8 church leaders have been killed in Iran since 1979, while more than 300 Christians were safely arrested in 2011. It is likely that the actual number is higher.
That persecution continues to this day and is driven by the government. The president from 2005-2013, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke openly about stopping Christian growth in Iran. And growth there has been. A lot of growth. Before the revolution of '79, 500 Muslims had converted to Islam - now there are more than half a million in Iran.
"The church is growing, but Christians are harassed, arrested and many are forced to flee"
The church is growing, but Christians are harassed, arrested and many are forced to flee. One of those forced to flee is Reza, who was one of the 500 converts before the revolution. Reza is one of the leaders of Elam and he is outspoken when asked about the persecution in Iran.
"In Iran, it is the government that persecutes Christians. When the government discovers a house church, they intervene, arrest the members and pressure the Christians. There are local religious guardians in all public institutions to ensure that the Islamic ideas of the revolution are lived out. Christians have problems with them. The mosques are closely linked to the government and act as an extension of it. If you need social help, it's through the mosques, and depending on the leader there, you risk being questioned, monitored, blackmailed or punished for your faith. But what's special about Iran is that it's not the neighbors who are against Christians, but the public system," he explains.
"What is special about Iran is that it is not the neighbors who are against Christians, but the public system" - Reza
Many Christian converts report incomprehension and grief among their families when they first hear that their child, sister, brother or friend has become a Christian. But while conversion in Afghanistan, for example, often leads to honor killings, it is extremely rare for conversions in Iran to endanger lives. There is a multicultural and religious heritage that runs deep within the Iranian people, which is one of the reasons for the spiritual openness and revival seen in recent years.
But just like in Turkey, where Islam is the kit of society, so it is in Iran. Islamic ideas were the cornerstone of Khomeini's revolution and the clergy rule the country. Therefore, the spread of non-Islamic ideas is a threat to the state, which they will do everything to combat. They monitor Christians, arrest them and fight to stop the spread of the faith. But in recent years, they are not succeeding. Christians are growing in numbers and house churches are spreading like wildfire across the country. Last year alone, Danish European Mission donors ensured that more than 23,000 New Testaments could be printed and smuggled into Iran. Here they are given to interested people and new believers.
In Iran, the Armenian Orthodox and Assyrian Orthodox churches have relative freedom as long as they do not evangelize among Iranian Muslims. But even the officially registered churches are under increasing pressure and are not allowed to hold services in Farsi or welcome Iranian Muslims interested in the faith.
"If an Iranian Muslim wanted to go to church there, they would not be allowed. The government has also set up surveillance outside the officially registered church buildings so they know who comes and goes to church," says Sam Yeghnazar, who supports the Iranian church from the outside. The churches and Christians who actively evangelize are also the ones most affected by persecution and pressure from the government. In the 80s and 90s, several pastors and church leaders were executed without trial. Some after being arrested and others were found murdered.
In the 2000s and up until now, the government has changed tactics and now settles for arbitrary arrests and longer prison stays in terrible conditions for Christians.
"They laid me down and whipped me. They hit me on the head and regularly threatened me with execution during the interrogation.
"They laid me down and whipped me. They hit me on the head and regularly threatened me with execution during interrogation" - Mostafa
"They laid me down and whipped me. They hit me on the head and regularly threatened me with execution during the interrogation. The interrogation took a total of 29 days," says Mostafa about his time in prison.
"Once a week I got 10 minutes of fresh air and once a week I got a five-minute shower. My cell was 2×1.5 m and the toilet was also in there. There was one bulb in the ceiling that lit up around the clock, so I could neither have privacy nor sleep. While I was in prison, I could hear them beating one of the other Christians in a neighboring cell," says Nader.
When Christians are arrested, the court sets unrealistically high bail requirements, so families have to go into debt to get their family members out. And when they get out, the harassment continues.
"The secret service kept calling me, my family and my friends and harassing us. They harassed everyone I was in contact with, and they also called my work and pressured my boss and my colleagues. I realized that it wasn't safe for me to have contact with anyone," says Ladan about the time after her release. Some time later, she fled Iran.
The intelligence services are always on the lookout for Christian house churches, evangelists and leaders, but official Iran puts pressure on all aspects of life. A Christian convert was given the choice by the judge in a divorce case to renounce his faith and gain custody of his daughter. The mother refused and the father got the daughter. They have not seen each other for 7 years.
But not all Christians who are picked up by the intelligence services ever make it into the official system. Hamid* was on his way home from work, but he never made it to the house. On the road was a black car with tinted windows.
"A handful of men came out of the car, blindfolded me, tied me up and threw me into the car. All the way in the car they beat me. They were shouting in my face and I was so shocked I couldn't even think. I didn't know where they were taking me, but maybe it was a prison, a police station or a secret place for the secret service. I could hear a lot of people shouting, screaming and making noise, but I was blindfolded and couldn't see anything. I was still being beaten, and although they took few breaks, they kept coming back to beat me. For the first few hours, I wasn't asked anything, but the agents said I was a Christian and continued to beat me. I was accused of being a spy for Israel and a missionary in Iran who wanted to trick people into becoming Christians. I denied being a spy or a liar, but it made no difference. They claimed they had movies and pictures of me and continued to beat me up. Finally, they forced me to sign three pieces of white paper. I signed, and then they could fill out the charges themselves afterwards," says Hamid. When the agents finished with him, they dropped him off on an unfinished road outside the city. He didn't dare go to the hospital because he was afraid they would report him when they saw the wounds on his body. So they had to heal on their own. When Hamid was reunited with his wife, they immediately fled Iran.
This is the reality in a country where Christians are growing in numbers but still make up less than 1 % of the population. Christians are pressured by the government, but the mission is not succeeding as evangelization continues and the church grows.
"The persecution creates fear. It does," says Reza, who has had his childhood home and major assets confiscated, while he is also barred from returning to Iran again.
"But it also creates unity among Christians. And especially enough, in Iran there is no big problem with evangelizing - about 80-90% of the New Testaments handed out on the street in Iran are received. And if you have the time and resources to stay with them, you would invite them, speak to them, half of them will come to faith. But the time and resources are a challenge because you don't know how long it will be before they are arrested and maybe forced to leave the country. But the persecution and pressure on Christians does something special to the testimony. Because the Iranian government is a clergy. And if I publicly stand up for my faith, I am going directly against them. Iran is an Islamic police state, and walking with Jesus is going 180 degrees against the government. Everyone knows that it's dangerous to be a Christian in Iran, and when an Iranian meets a Christian who says Come and follow Jesusit does something to them and challenges them. Because either they think he's crazy or he's experienced something so amazing that it's worth investigating and following," says Reza.
Fortunately, many Iranians want to investigate further and end up following Jesus despite government persecution.
When the government persecutes you
Persecution has many faces, which is also one of the reasons why there is no revival in both Iran and Turkey. In Iran, there is minimal persecution from neighbors, friends, colleagues and family, so government persecution stands alone and presents fewer challenges for the new Christian. In Turkey, Christians also face intense pressure from family and friends, making it harder to keep the faith.
But it has taken a long time for revival to come to Iran. Many missionaries devoted decades of their lives and saw only a few come to faith. One of them was Robert Bruce, who wrote home to his congregation in Scotland in the late 1800s that "I do not reap. I can rarely claim to sow seed. I am hardly plowing. But I do remove stones."
Although Islam is the cornerstone of both Iranian and Turkish society in 2021, Jesus has said that he is the cornerstone and more and more people want to build their lives on it. Persecution or not. Pray for the Christians. Pray that they will have the perseverance to endure the persecution from the government that should be protecting them.
*For security reasons, some of the names mentioned in the article have been changed.
