Current (Iranian Christian) situation
In 1976, the census reported that the Christian population of Iran holding citizenship there numbered 168,593 people, with most of them being Armenians. Due to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, almost half of the Armenians migrated to the newly independent Republic of Armenia.
However, the opposite trend has occurred since 2000, and the number of Christians with Iranian citizenship increased to 109,415 in 2006.
At the same time, significant immigration of Assyrians from Iraq has been recorded due to massacres and harassment in post-Saddam Iraq.
However, most of those Assyrians in Iran do not have Iranian citizenship, and therefore aren't included in the data. In 2008, the central office of the International Union of Assyrians was officially transferred to Iran after being hosted in the United States for more than four decades.
| Census | Christians | Total | Percentage | +/- |
| 1976 | 168,593 | 33,708,744 | 0.500% | ... |
| 1986 | 97,557 | 49,445,010 | 0.197% | -42% |
| 1996 | 78,745 | 60,055,488 | 0.131% | -19% |
| 2006 | 109,415 | 70,495,782 | 0.155% | +39% |
| 2011 | 117,704 | 75,149,669 | 0.157% | +8% |
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The government guarantees the recognized Christian minorities a number of rights (production and sale of non-halal foods),[citation needed] representation in parliament, special family law etc.[citation needed] According to US-based Barnabas Fund government intrusion, expropriation of property, forced closure and persecution, particularly in the initial years after the Iranian Revolution, have all been documented. Iranian Christians tend to be urban, with 50% living in Tehran. Christianity remains the second-largest non-Muslim minority religion in the country. Christian converts from Islam Beginning in the 1970s some Protestant pastors started to hold church services in homes in Persian, rather than in one of the ethnic Christian minority languages (Armenian, Syriac). One of the key leaders who spearheaded this movement was the Assemblies of God bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr. Worshiping in homes, rather than in church buildings, and utilizing the national language (Persian) which was spoken by all Muslims, combined with dissatisfaction at violence connected to the Iranian Revolution led to substantial numbers of Iranian Muslims departing Islam and converting to Christianity. This took place both within Iran and abroad, among the Iranian diaspora. After the Iranian Revolution, Christians in Iran were not allowed to proselytize or evangelize Muslims. Muslims who change their faith to Christianity are subject to societal and official pressure which may lead to the death penalty. However, there are cases in which a Muslim will adopt the Christian faith, secretly declaring their conversion. In effect, they are practising Christians, but legally Muslims; thus, the statistics of Iranian Christians does not include Muslim converts to Christianity. Youcef Nadarkhani, an Jammiat-e Rabbani pastor, was allegedly sentenced to death for refusing to recant his faith.[25] More recently the Iranian-American pastor and former Muslim Saeed Abedini, who in 2013 was sentenced to eight years prison, allegedly "Helped to build the country’s underground Christian church network".[26] However, Iranian official sources has described such claims as "propaganda". However, There are some officially recognized ethnically Iranian Christian communities, as the descendants of Muslims who converted to Protestant Christianity in 19th century were exempted from the laws passed in 1979. Apostasy of other religious minorities (Zoroastrians, Jews, Bahá'ís) to Christianity is also illegal, and hence similarly the statistics on Iranian Christians do not include Zoroastrian, Jew, or Bahá'í conversions to Christianity. Satellite TV networks, such as Mohabat TV, Sat7 Pars, and TBN Nejat TV distribute educational and encouraging programs for Christians, especially targeting Persian speakers. Some Christian ex-Muslims emigrate from Iran for educational, political, security or economic reasons. A 2015 study estimated (describing this as a conservative estimate) that there were 100,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background living in Iran, most of them evangelical or Pentecostal Christians. |
That’s my point.
I don’t make arguments for the Iranian regime but they allow Christians.
You can run a pig farm and sell pork there which could bring you much trouble even in Israel not that long time ago.
In US ‘ally’ Saudi Arabia being caught with a bacon is akin to a heroine traffic.