IRAN USCIRF–RECOMMENDED FOR COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN (CPC) KEY FINDINGS I n 2020, religious freedom conditions in Iran deteriorated, with the government escalating its severe repression of religious minorities and continuing to export religious extremism and intolerance abroad. During the year, scores of Christians were arrested, assaulted, and unjustly sentenced to years in prison. In January, Iran removed the “other” option from the religion category on national ID cards, forcing members of the Baha’i community to either deny their religion or be denied this crucial document. The government also continued to arrest Baha’is and impose lengthy prison sentences on them. Between 50 and 100 Baha’is were reported to be in prisons in Iran during 2020, despite the widespread prevalence of COVID-19. In October, officials confiscated Baha’i land near the city of Sari. In late November, Iran conducted a mass raid on Baha’i houses, arresting 20 people and searching about 50 houses. Iran also severely mistreated Sunni activists and clerics in 2020. In September, Iran’s Supreme Court affirmed death sentences for seven Sunni prisoners on charges including “waging war against God” and “corruption on Earth.” The government continued to repress the Gonabadi Sufi community after hastening the death of its spiritual leader Noor Ali Tabandeh in 2019. During 2020, it continued to detain Sufis who had protested Tabandeh’s house arrest in 2018 and subjected several of them to egregious mistreatment. Throughout the year, Iran’s government continued to promote antisemitism. In March, several submissions to a COVID-19 cartoon contest sponsored by Iran’s Ministry of Health asserted that COVID19 was a Jewish conspiracy. The ministry took no action to reject these submissions. In September, state media advanced false ideas about Jewish victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks and Iran launched its third Holocaust denial cartoon contest. In February, a Basij student group in Hamedan made threats against the tomb of Esther and Mordechai. In May, unknown assailants attempted to set fire to the religious site. That same month, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted that the United States is controlled by “wealthy Zionists and their corporate owners,” a common antisemitic dog-whistle. Iran’s government closed 147 shops during Ramadan for “not following Shari’a law” and arrested three people for eating during the daily fast. It also imprisoned and prosecuted several women who peacefully protested mandatory headscarf laws. Imprisoned lawyer Nasrin Soutudeh, who defended many of these women in court, began a hunger strike on August 11, and was denied adequate medical care. She was granted a temporary release from prison on November 9 after contracting COVID-19 but ordered to return on December 2 despite needing ongoing medical evaluation. Iran also continued to detain USCIRF Religious Prisoner of Conscience Golrokh Iraee at Qarchak Prison and deny her visits with her ill husband. In addition to invoking religion to restrict the religious freedom of women, Iran invokes its interpretation of Shari’a to justify religious freedom violations against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community and actively executes LGBTI people for their sexual identity. USCIRF Religious Prisoner of Conscience Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani remained in prison on a six-year sentence for “promoting Zionist Christianity.” Pastor Victor Bet Tamraz and his wife fled in August following a rejected appeal against charges of “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security.” In March 2020, the government of Canada granted asylum to spiritualist leader and USCIRF Religious Prisoner of Conscience Mohammed Ali Taheri following threats to him and his followers by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC continued to threaten the lives of Taheri’s followers outside Iran in 2020. Taheri is the founder of the Erfan e-Halgheh spiritualist movement and was sentenced to death in 2015 before the sentence was overturned later that same year. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT • Redesignate Iran as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA); • Continue to impose targeted sanctions on Iranian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals’ assets and/or barring their entry into the United States under human rights related financial and visa authorities, citing specific religious freedom violations; • Raise religious freedom and other human rights abuses in any discussions with Iran’s government regarding U.S. re-entry to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); • Work with members of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance to exert multilateral pressure on Iran to KEY USCIRF RESOURCES & ACTIVITIES • Factsheet: Iranian Government Officials Sanctioned for Violating Religious Freedom • USCIRF Spotlight: Religious Freedom in Iran during COVID-19 26 U S C I R F | A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 2 1 improve religious freedom conditions and release religious prisoners of conscience; • Press for the release of all religious prisoners of conscience, including Youcef Nadarkhani and Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee; and • Reauthorize and ensure implementation of the Lautenberg Amendment, which aids persecuted Iranian religious minorities seeking refugee status in the United States.