Iran's Christians face renewed fears ahead of Christmas
The case of Dabrina Bet Tamraz and her parents highlights a string of crackdowns against Evangelical and Protestant Christians across the country that have forced many to flee.
In 2009, Iran began a crackdown on its religious community that led to the arrest of Dabrina Bet Tamraz. The government eventually shuttered her family’s Assyrian Pentecostal church.
Today, Evangelical and Protestant Christians in the country are largely restricted in worship, and the pressure to remain silent is only increasing.
In 2014, the Tamraz home in Tehran was raided by Iranian intelligence officers. Her father, Victor, was taken and held in solitary confinement for 65 days. By 2017, he was formally convicted on charges of illegal church activities and threatening national security. A year later, Dabrina’s mother, Shamiran, was also convicted of attending seminaries abroad and teaching spies against Iran.
