Feminist activist in Iran sentenced to 24 years in prison for removing hijab.

You claimed that the attitude in Iran is "remarkably" great towards non-Muslims, but now you can't stand by that claim when I ask about the routine locking up of Christians? That's pretty weak. Why are Christians locked up if the Iranian Constitution protects religious minorities?

 

Iran's attitude on recognized religious minorities, including Christians, is as I stated when it comes to the free exercise of their religion, but as I have mentioned, that doesn't include proselytizing and trying to find new converts nor conversion of Muslims to another religion. Additionally, regardless of your religion (except for the prohibition on alcohol, which is legally allowed for Christians as part of their religious ceremonies) you are obviously not immune from being prosecuted for any crimes you commit because of your religion. A lot of the reports you read about the 'sudden mistreatment of (newly converted) Christians nonetheless are frankly part of the propaganda campaign against Iran and involve a lot more complicated set of facts than is being presented.

 

So no Christian has ever been arrested PURELY for being a Christian?

 

You can be sure that has never happened, unless (and even this is usually a lot more complicated) the person is a Muslim newly converted to Christianity and has done some other things to publicize the conversion and seek additional converts.

 

Which isn't an example of being arrested PURELY for being a Christian, is it?

 

I don't think it would be, but just wanted to be clear. Otherwise, there is absolutely no rhythm or reason for anyone to arrest Christians and it just isn't at all something that would have any relevance to anything in Iran.

 

So 'religious freedom' is in the Iranian Constitution, but it's pretty much worthless. Got it.

 

I don't think so at all.

 

Even though they are arrested for sharing what they believe with others but not forcing them to convert? Yeah right! Very free!

 

As I respond to this comment, I have to remind myself that I am not here to prove anything to you. I share information that I feel will be useful and accurate for you to make your judgments. So I can respond two ways, both accurate, as it relates to what you said: first, most of the cases you read involves a lot more than that -- and those things left unmentioned in how you described things (and how they are reported) is actually behind what is going on in those cases. Second, however, even what you said would (if you are proselytizing and not simply sharing information) be something that could be considered a crime.

 

Islamic religious leaders understand that there is no intellectual basis for Islam and therefore any alternatives to other religions must be forbidden.

Islam is spread through force, not reason, and it's maintained through force and censorship. It's totalitarian, which is why the people are forced to pray five times a day. It doesn't give them much space or time to consider anything else.

 

I like to bring to close my views on all of this, saying things that will be difficult to explain here and now. But I will say it anyway.

Iran is a nation with a conscious and continuous connection to its past. None of its struggles now are new; they represent struggles that it has always faced, going back to the mists of time. To when recorded history was mixed in with a lot of myths and legends, in some ways just like now.

At its core, Iranian ideology - derived from its Zoroastrian heritage - sees the world as a place for a cosmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Unlike in the monotheistic tradition of the Abrahamic religions, the result of this battle isn't foreordained. We have a choice and purpose in life: each of our individual decisions to side with good or evil affects which side of the battle may ultimately prevail.

Although Norouz is a holiday predating Islam, one which traces its root to Iran's Zoroastrian tradition, even in the Islamic Republic of Iran, this is Iran's most important holiday. The first day in the calendar, and the most important festival of the year, the celebration of the ancient Persian new year, called Norouz, still sees our clerics join the feast and pay homage to this holiday, marking the beginning of the year with the coming of Spring at the stroke of the March equinox. And thereafter, until the 13th day after Norouz, when Iranians go out to picnic and discard evil during a festival called Sizdah bedar, most Iranians will be on holiday during these 14 days.

When we aren't celebrating, however, we do have a very important holiday from our Shia Islamic calendar that brings most Iranians together. That holiday, known as Ashura, is when Iranians mourn. Above all, what they mourn is the victory of the forces of evil over the forces of good, in an ancient battle which took place near Karbala in present day Iraq. The site of that battle, where the forces of Imam Hussein fell to the tyrant Yazid, is not far from the site of the battle that saw the armies of Sassanid Iran be defeated at the hands of the armies of Islam.

It is not just in the festivals we celebrate, and the ones we mourn, that the footprints of Iran's ancient traditions are felt in the consciousness of modern Iran. The Persian renaissance of the 9th and 10th century, spurred above all by the wide popularity of Iran's epic, the Shahnameh (or Book of Kings) -- complied in 60,000 couplets by Iran's national poet, Ferdowsi -- didn't simply keep the Persian language alive for that language to then become, thanks to some of the greatest works in world literature by poets and writers like Rumi, Hafez, Sa'adi and many others, the lingua franca of a large swath of territory in the Muslim world. It also gave an alternative account of history, one mixed in with its own myths and legends, but one that did what Ferdowsi had promised to do when he said: I brought to life the Ajam (the derogatory term used by Arabs to refer to mainly Persians) with my Persian and when he said: If IRAN ceases, so shall I.

From Ferdowi afterwards, just like it was before the conquest of Iran by the Arabs, whoever wanted to establish legitimate rule over IRAN, needed to first know and pay true homage to that tradition and history. Nor was it enough for someone to celebrate that history, like the Shah did in his grand celebration of 2,500 years of Persian history in 1971 bringing together foreign heads of state and dignitaries from all over the world, only to have them served by cuisine flown by Maxim in Paris and copying the fashion in vogue in Paris or in London or in Rome. And, certainly not, if the person claiming such mantle, is mainly seeking just a privileged position for himself and his nation, in a table set by those who are feasting on evil, not anything good. Evil being above all, the forces of ugliness, darkness, ignorance and above all lies. And good being beauty and light and above all the truth.

The Mantle of the Prophet in Iran is a much more profound mantle than anything that can be found in any of the scriptures or ideologies that some of you want to peddle in Iran. Indeed, when a pig like Trump promises the "end of Iran", he has no clue that the "end of Iran" will only come with the end of history.

 

Isn't proselytising just sharing information?

 

It is sharing "information" (and often other things) with the intent, with respect to what we are discussing, to seek conversion to another religion. In defining it for you, I am not passing judgment on the issue either way.

 

It is trying to convert. That is distinctly different from sharing how you see things or even what your religion says. Jews were so good at proselytising in Rome that it was banned. Possibly if this had not happened the West would have largely taken on Judaism not Christianity.

 

Define "trying." You mean encouraging?

 

How could the government possibly know what the "intent" is?

 

Intent is an element in many crimes, in both Iran and the US, established by facts and circumstances which would reasonably lead one to infer such intent.

 

Well I didn't say that they were arrested for celebrating New Year, or anything else.

 

Clearly you are NOT talking about recent public executions!

Clearly you would NOT be okay with any rules which are introduced regarding how to dress!

 

Not being able to share your faith with others with the intent that they will convert after thinking for themselves, is a pretty pathetically weak form of 'religious freedom.' And it obviously doesn't apply to Muslims sharing their faith with Christians with the intent that they will convert.

 

The point is that no one in Iran is persecuted for just being Christian. Indeed, the Christian community in Iran has 3 representatives in Iran's parliament (2 Armenian and 1 Assyrian) and are on average either middle or upper middle class and doing comparatively alright in Iran.

To give you one example, until not very long ago, the captain of Iran's national football team was a Christian. And there was no issue about his religion for anyone, even though football (soccer) is a hugely popular sport in Iran. Teymourian, in fact, would often celebrate goals and follow up on Iran's anthem using the motion with the fingers which Christians do as the symbol of the trinity. No one cared and he was quite popular even though he wasn't a 'superstar' either. He was a good, hardworking, player which everyone of every political stripe in Iran respected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andranik_Teymourian

 

What discrimination do black people face in Iran?

Why?

 

None, legally. They aren't a large enough community to face much discrimination either. A typical Iranian may never run into a person who is black, unless they live in Iran's south. In fact, until recently, Iran's south as a whole was largely isolated from the rest of the country. Few people from the much more populated regions of Iran, which contained Iran's most important cities and the overwhelming majority of the population, were even aware that there were Iranians of African origin in Iran (concentrated in southern Iranian ports cities such as Bushehr or Bandar Abbas). Even if by chance they ran into someone of African origin, many assured the person was either of Indian or Arab decent (many 'Arabs', especially from the Persian Gulf region, show features that suggest they might be of African origin, which affects Iranian perception of what an 'Arab' might look like). People of Arab or Indian decent also making up a large percentage of the population in port cities like Bushehr and Bandar Abbas.

Anyway, here is a report about African Iranians in Iran.

https://qz.com/africa/964350/a-photographer-captures-irans-hidden-minority-of-afro-iranians/
Portraits show Iran’s hidden minority of Afro-Iranians

You can also read the Wikipedia entry about this community.

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Iranians
Afro-Iranians

 

Why?