The latest reporting from faith freedom organizations peels back the curtain on a regime that treats Christianity not as a religion but as a political crime. Open Doors’ World Watch List and related country profiles make clear that Iranian converts and house-church members live under constant threat of arrest, torture, and long prison sentences simply for choosing faith over forced conformity.
According to the World Watch List rankings, Iran sits among the very worst offenders, its persecution score placing it in the “extreme” category and alongside nations notorious for brutal religious repression. The scale and consistency of these violations — from legal discrimination to violent state pressure — are not isolated incidents but an entrenched system.
The methods are chillingly bureaucratic: raids on house churches, fabricated charges of “national security” crimes, relentless interrogation and extortionary bail demands, and the targeted imprisonment of church leaders. Recent years have seen new legislation and rhetoric that paint converts as spies or traitors, widening the regime’s license to persecute and even introduce harsher punishments.
This is not a minor human-rights problem; it is a large-scale campaign against conscience. Open Doors’ global figures show hundreds of millions of Christians facing discrimination worldwide, with thousands murdered or imprisoned in the reporting year — a grim reminder that persecution of believers is a growing global crisis, not a remote curiosity.
Make no mistake: this is ideological totalitarianism masquerading as religious law. Theocratic regimes that crush conversion and force religious conformity do so to control people’s souls and silence dissent, and Western complacency only emboldens them. Conservatives who cherish religious liberty should see Iran’s behavior for what it is — a direct assault on the universal right to worship freely.
Those on the ground who are trying to help face enormous danger; NGOs and church partners operating in neighboring countries provide training, trauma care, and escape routes for those fleeing persecution. Supporting these relief networks and ensuring safe asylum pathways are concrete ways to counter the regime’s cruelty and save lives.
Our response should be unapologetic and principled: call out the regime’s atrocities, prioritize religious freedom in diplomatic and refugee policy, and back sanctions and protective measures that target the perpetrators of religious oppression. Appeasing clerical autocrats while invoking abstract stability does nothing for the men and women who risk everything to follow their conscience.
The world’s defenders of liberty must stop treating religious persecution as someone else’s problem. The persecution of Christians in Iran is a moral stain on the international order, and it deserves our fiercest condemnation and our practical help — now, not later.
