Before the Christmas season, the Iranian regime launched a massive security crackdown in which more than 100 Christians were arrested in order to "warn" them of proselytizing in Christmas, the director of the Foundation for the Defense of Religious Freedom said.
Mansour Bourgui said the number of arrests last week reached 114, while 142 Christians were arrested in 11 different cities across the country in November.
Most of the detainees were "allowed to return home a few hours later and were informed of a call from the Ministry of Intelligence," the Worldwatch Monitor quoted Borji as saying, but some were still in detention for "suspected leadership of missionary religious groups" .
Borge said intelligence had asked Christians to write details about their activities, pledging not to contact any members of other Christian groups.
At the end of last week, the official Mehr news agency claimed that some of the detainees were foreign nationals with Iranian names.
The estimated 90,000 people in Iran's Christian minority suffer from persecution in a situation described by human rights organizations as "tragic."
The Tragedy of Fairouzi
The news of the arrests came the week of the death of a longtime Christian Christian, Ibrahim Firouzi, who was denied a last look at his mother and was not allowed to attend the funeral.
Firouzi, 32, was accused of "promoting Christian Zionism" after his arrest in March 2013.
In July of the same year, Firouzi was tried for a "revolutionary" trial in his hometown of Rupat Karim, southwest of Tehran, on charges of attempting to launch a Christian site, contacting suspected foreigners and running ecclesiastical services on the Internet, while denying all charges.
In August 2013, he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment and two-year exile in the remote city of Sarbaz, near the Pakistan border in southeastern Iran.
"Missionary activities are opposed to the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the statement said.
New charges
Firouzi was due to be released in January 2015 but remained in prison and was re-tried in March of the same year on new charges of "working against national security, gathering and conspiracy."
He was sentenced to five years in prison, beaten and tortured, and forced to attend an appeal hearing, not for his right to appeal but to gain time and postpone the main hearing.
Firouzi is in Rajai Shaher prison in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran, which includes criminals and extremists.
In July last year, Firouzi began a hunger strike to protest the growing arrests among Christians.
Other Iranian Christians also staged a hunger strike to protest their treatment, including Maryam Nagash Zargaran, whose case was highlighted by Amnesty International in 2016 when she criticized the absence of medical care in Iranian prisons, as well as Amin Afshar Nadiri, who is serving a 15-year sentence On charges of "working against national security through the organization and establishment of home churches and contempt for religions."
