Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Friday, Aug 08, 2025

US report highlights violations of religious freedom by regime in Iran

US report highlights violations of religious freedom by regime in Iran

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom on Thursday published a scathing report detailing the Iranian regime’s continuing attacks on religious freedom.
It came on the day a Swedish Court sentenced Iranian citizen Hamid Noury to life in prison for his role in the 1988 massacre of Iranian dissidents.

Officials from the USCIRF, a federal government organization, said the report details widespread religious repression in Iran, the targets of which include members of the Baha’i faith, Christian converts, Sunnis, and Gonabadi Sufis, who “continue to face ongoing violations of their freedom of religion or belief.”

The four-page report begins by accusing Iran of “egregious violations” of religious freedoms and urges the US State Department to designate Iran as a Country of Particular Concern for its ongoing and systematic attacks on religious freedom.

“Iran’s government has continued to escalate its repression of Baha’is, including arrests and the seizure of Baha’i property,” it states. “Christians in Iran — particularly converts from Islam — have also been subject to arrest and excessive prison sentences. Iran also persecutes smaller religious communities, including Zoroastrians, Mandeans and Yarsanis.

“The government continues its arrest and detention of Sunni Muslims as well. Religious minorities who flee Iran continue to face threats to their safety from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iran continues its attempts to influence other governments in the Middle East to persecute religious minorities.

Iran’s government also continues to use religion as a pretext for the repression of women, denying them individual freedom of religion or belief, and showing leniency on religious grounds toward perpetrators of so-called ‘honor killings.’”

The report also details repression and persecution by the Iranian regime based on gender identity and sexual preference, and “illustrates how the Iranian government uses a singular interpretation of Ja’afri Shi’a Islam to restrict religious freedom.”

According to the US State Department, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 the president is required to annually review the status of religious freedom in every country and designate as a Country of Particular Concern any in which authorities engage in or tolerate “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” The law defines this as “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom,” including: torture, prolonged detention without charge, forced disappearances, or other flagrant denial of life, liberty or security.

Under the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act of 2016, the president is also required to designate on a Special Watch List “each country that engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom during the previous year but does not meet” all the criteria for designation as a Country of Particular Concern.

The report comes at a time when Iran is facing growing international pressure. During an official trip to the Middle East this week, US President Joe Biden is meeting the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region to pursue, among other goals, a strategy that will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The court case in Sweden involving Noury, an Iranian former government official who was convicted over his role in the massacres of Iranian dissidents in 1988, adds to the pressure on Tehran.

Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition opposed to the regime in Tehran, welcomed the conviction of Noury and described it as a first step on the path to full justice.

She said that comprehensive justice will be achieved when the main perpetrators of the crime, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi among others, are put on trial in the courts of a free Iran or at international tribunals.

“In 92 hearings, the Swedish court dealt with a number of events in only one prison (Gohardasht) out of more than 100 prisons where the massacre was carried out,” said Rajavi.

“The dossiers on the massacre in Evin and the enormous crime that took place in more than 100 cities, and on the heroic actions of women affiliated with (opposition group) the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK for short) in the 1988 massacre and the executioners’ crimes against them, should be opened.”

This week Hossein-Ali Nayeri, who was the head of the Death Committee in Tehran at the time of the massacre, said during an interview that had it not been carried out “maybe the regime would not have survived at all.”

In response to this statement, Rajavi said that it shows that the religious dictatorship views the PMOI/MEK as an existential threat.

She added that the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini for the massacre of all MEK members and sympathizers, who refused to cooperate with the regime’s religious fascism or participate in its crimes, shows that the physical, political and ideological elimination of the opposition has always been at the top of the regime’s priorities.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Mediators Edge Closer to Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
Meta Announces Formation of Ambitious AI Unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Trump Asserts Readiness for Further Strikes on Iran Amid Nuclear Tensions
Iran's Parliament Votes to Suspend Cooperation with Nuclear Watchdog
Trump Announces Upcoming US-Iran Meeting Amid Controversial Airstrikes
Trump Moves to Reshape Middle East Following Israel-Iran Conflict
NATO Leaders Endorse Plan for Increased Defence Spending
U.S. Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $65 Amid Market Volatility
Explosions Rock Doha as Iranian Missiles Target Qatar
“You Have 12 Hours to Flee”: Israeli Threat Campaign Targets Surviving Iranian Officials
Oman Set to Introduce Personal Income Tax, First in Gulf
Germany and Italy Under Pressure to Repatriate $245bn of Gold from US Vaults
×