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Iran’s regime is arresting Christians under false espionage claims, targeting converts with harsh sentences, forced confessions, and propaganda, weaponising anti-Israel rhetoric to suppress the Gospel.

Iran’s Islamist regime has been arresting Christians en masse, falsely accusing them of being “Mossad mercenaries“.

Sophistry is behind the new tactic.

Islamists are using Israel as an excuse to throw even more Christians behind bars.

Throwing around false accusations about espionage, the regime also appears to be exploiting the rise in Jew-hate war fever.

Tortured and Falsely Accused

Based on reputable sources such as Dr Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, the Islamic regime is weaponising pro-Hamas propaganda against Christians.

As stated by Sato in an August report for the UN General Assembly,

“Iranian authorities and State media are portraying evangelical Christians as collaborators with Israel and the West.”

At least 96 Christians across 24 cities were arrested on claims they “served as agents of ‘global Zionism’ and celebrated Israel’s 12-Day War with Iran in June.”

According to Amnesty Iran’s official X page, the state’s Ministry of Intelligence “accused sectors of the Christian community of being “Mossad mercenaries”.

The state then “aired confessions of detained Christians”. This was nine days before Sato’s UN report about the matter.

Those confessions, Amnesty Iran remarked, “raised deep concerns” about how Christians were being treated.

Alarmingly, these types of arrests often involve forced false confessions, which are usually beaten out of detainees.

The self-serving public nature of the “confessions” strongly indicates “they were extracted under torture”, Amnesty argued.

Published online by state-affiliated Tasnim News, Iran’s official Intelligence statement reads like pure propaganda.

Section 3 is called Foiling Overthrow Schemes, Alternative Government Projects, and Colonial-Made Cult Conspiracies.

Point 3.5 specifically singles out Christians.

Without providing evidence or further context, Iran accused the United States’ Persian Church of Salvation (Nejat) – which is based in Seattle – of participating in a Zionist coup attempt.

The “intelligence” ministry then rehashed its repeatedly false claims that Evangelical Christians and Christian converts were part of a cult.

The cult label usually refers to Christianity in general, which is defined as a “Zionist sect” under Iranian law.

Packed into the undefined term “American-Zionists”, Iran’s Islamists claimed Christians were being used by “the Zionist regime”.

In this case, Iran appears to be exploiting rising concerns in the West about Evangelicalism’s (the good, the bad, and the ugly) affection for Israel.

Self-justifications are a tell.

These are serving to give Iran’s Islamists self-interests.

They give false grounds for charging Christians with espionage, and for accusing Israel of destroying the so-called “historical coexistence and loyalty of Iranian Christians”.

Former Muslims

Notably, a large portion of the Islamic totalitarian state’s victims are former Muslims.

Christians who convert from Islam are considered to be spies or domestic terrorists.

Blowing the “blame the Jews” political narrative out of the water, Iranian Christian advocacy group Article 18 confirmed that Iran’s crackdown has little to do with Israel or “Christian Zionists”.

It’s about the Gospel.

Five Iranian Christians have been sentenced to 8 years in prison for practicing their faith.

In 2024 alone, 96 Christians in Iran received a combined 260+ years of prison sentences.

Here’s what’s happening, and why it matters 🧵 pic.twitter.com/iLgB1lSk5g

— Tousi TV (@TousiTVOfficial) October 14, 2025

Three Christian converts were arrested for espionage (undermining the state) late last year and charged with “spreading propaganda against Sharia law.”

The youngest of the three is 37-year-old Narges Nasri, who is pregnant with her first child.

Narges is now serving a harsh 16-year prison sentence for her faith in Christ.

She was charged with participating in a house church (referred to as an opposition group) and posting pro-women criticism of the state on social media.

The third charge was for “propaganda activities contrary to Islamic law” – in other words, preaching the Gospel and handing out Bibles.

48-year-old Abbas Soori was arrested in the same raids that swept across Tehran. He was arrested for similar reasons and is serving 15 years.

Mehran Shamloui, also a Christian convert and musician, just turned 44 and was sentenced to eight years for belonging to a house church.

“Mehran is a Christian convert, and in Iran that means that he has no official place to worship,” Article 18 explained in an 11 November post on X.

Christians meet in house churches, which is considered to be a crime, they added.

Shamloui’s story gets about as dark as mum-to-be Narges Nasri’s.

After he was sentenced in March, Shamloui fled Iran for Turkey. He didn’t seek asylum and was deported.

Shamloui was arrested at the airport and “transferred straight to jail”, Article 18 said.