07/03/2021 Iran (International Christian Concern) – On June 29th Iranian Christian Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh’s request for conditional release from Evin Prison was rejected without explanation. Nasser began his ten-year sentence in January 2018 for charges of “actions against national security”. After receiving assurances from prison officials, the 60-year-old Christian convert applied for conditional release having fulfilled parole requirements, but as with his three previous requests for re-trial, all were rejected.
According to the Iranian government, Nasser’s membership and participation in a house church in Tehran is the cause for violating national security. Bewildered and pained, Nasser has written numerous open letters to the government asking, “is the fellowship of a few Christian brothers and sisters in someone’s home, singing worship songs, reading the Bible and worshiping God acting against national security?”
For Nasser’s family and aging mother, who he had been the primary care giver of, the news hits hard as he had shared his optimism over the possibility of early release. This comes immediately after the sentencing of three Christian converts on charges of “propaganda against the regime” and the overturn of another converts appeal on the same charge both made under a new broad sectarianism law that seeks to root out “any deviant education or propaganda that contradicts or interferes with the sacred Islamic shari’a.”
