ISFAHAN, Iran — An Assyrian pastor the Iranian government accused of “converting Muslims” is being tortured in prison and threatened with execution, sources close to the case said.
On Feb. 2, state security agents arrested Pastor Wilson Issavi, 65, shortly after he finished a house meeting at a friend’s home in Isfahan, 208 miles south of Tehran. Issavi’s wife, Medline Nazanin, recently visited her husband in prison, where she saw that he had obvious signs of torture. Iranian intelligence officials told Nazanin that her husband might be executed for his alleged activities.
Issavi is the pastor of the Evangelical Church of Kermanshah in Isfahan, a 50-year-old church body affiliated with the Assemblies of God that caters to the local Assyrian population. One regional analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Iranian government is set on crushing religious freedom within the country.
On Feb. 28, Isfahan residents Hamid Shafiee and his wife Reyhaneh Aghajary, both converts from Islam and house church leaders, were arrested at their home.
Aghajary was at home with a group of other Christians when police came for her and her husband, who was not at home. Police handcuffed Aghajary and, upon finding boxes of Bibles, began beating her. Her husband Shafiee was arrested an hour later when he returned to the house. Their fate and whereabouts are still unknown.
“The recent spate of church leader arrests provides clear evidence of the Iranian authorities’ desperate determination to strangle the growing church movement, along with all other forms of perceived political dissent,” said the regional analyst.
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