Tehran - An Iranian man, converted from Islam to Christianity, was sentenced to ten years in prison for "crimes against state security": the defendant is guilty of distributing copies of the Gospel in the country. Mohammad-Hadi Bordbar, known as Mostafa, a native of the city of Rasht, was accused of conspiracy and sentenced. As reported to Fides Agency, the court documents show that the man confessed to "having abandoned Islam to follow Christianity", and "considering evangelization his duty, he distributed 12,000 pocket gospels".
After having received baptism, Mostafa had set up a "house church", an assembly of home worship, with prayer meetings at home, which are considered "illegal". Mostafa was arrested in Tehran on December 27, 2012, after a police raid at his house. The security officers detained and interrogated all those present at the meeting for hours, about 50 Iranian Christians. In his home the police found material and Christian publications, such as movies, books, CDs and over 6,000 copies of the Gospel. Mostafa had already been arrested in 2009 for conversion to Christianity, found guilty of apostasy, then released on bail.In another recent case, reported to Fides by the Iranian Christian Agency "Mohabat News", a court in the city of Robat-Karim, south of Tehran, sentenced the young Ebrahim Firouzi, another Iranian Christian to one year in prison and two years of exile, for "evangelization activities and distribution of Bibles", considered "in opposition to the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran". In the ruling, the judge describes Ebrahim Firouzi of being "guilty of criminal acts for holding prayer meetings at home and for having spread among the young doubts on Islamic principles". The young man was arrested in March 2013. [Link]