Gochumyan Details Abuses while Imprisoned in Iran
Iran (International Christian Concern) — Hakop Gochumyan, arrested in Iran in 2023 for his Christian faith, recently sent a letter to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) detailing abuses he’s endured while imprisoned.
In the letter, published on May 9, Gochumyan explained that Iranian authorities have “subjected [him] to psychological violence” and threatened to take his life and the lives of his family.
Mervyn Thomas, president and founder of CSW, called for “Gochumiyan’s immediate and unconditional release” and rallied the “international community … to hold Iranian authorities to account” for their human rights abuses.
Gochumyan was detained just outside of Tehran, in Pardis, in August 2023 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in February 2024. His charges include “engaging in deviant proselytizing activity that contradicts the sacred law of Islam” by allegedly associating with “a network of evangelical Christianity.”
Authorities arrested Gochumyan and his wife on the same day. His wife was released on bail in October 2023 and returned to Armenia.
The couple, along with their two children, were in Iran to visit family and, while attending a dinner at a friend’s house, police arrived and arrested them. Allegedly, Gochumyan possessed copies of Farsi-language New Testaments, which are banned in Iran, and had attended several churches during his visit.
Spreading the gospel of Christ to non-Christians is illegal in Iran. Additionally, possessing Bibles written in Farsi, the nation’s official language, isn’t allowed as it could draw a non-Christian to Jesus. Christian conversion is something the Iranian regime strongly discourages and attempts to dissuade, often through psychological manipulation, overt intimidation, physical abuse, and imprisonment.
A 2024 International Christian Concern report stated that “the Christian church in Iran is one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world, according to experts familiar with the issue.”
