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According to Article 18, an organization that promotes religious freedom in Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s atrocities against protesters opposing the regime resulted in the killing of at least 19 Iranian Christians by security forces.
Article 18 reported on 9 February that “the total number of Christians killed during the protests is at least 19, including members of Iran’s recognized (Armenian and Assyrian) and unrecognized (converts) communities.”
According to Article 18’s statement, the Islamic Republic’s “brutal response to last month’s mass demonstrations” resulted in security forces killing 35-year-old Iranian Christian Nader Mohammadi and 51-year-old Zahra Arjomandi, both of whom were shot at protests 1,000 miles apart on January 8.
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Iranians gather blocking a road during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. (MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Mohammadi was the father of three young children and was assassinated in Babol, northern Iran. Arjomandi, a mother of two, died in her son’s arms on Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf in southern Iran, according to Article 18.
Iranian Christian website Mohabbat News said regime security forces refused to release Arjomandi’s body for six days. Mohabbat reported that her body was released for burial only under “strict security measures”, including a media blackout and a ban on memorial services.
Mansour Borji, executive director of Article 18, told Fox News Digital that, “Today, like millions of other Iranians, Christians are looking for the freedom and justice that has been denied to them for nearly five decades, and they know well the price that comes with it. Every year too many Christians are arrested and imprisoned in torturous conditions for exercising their right to religious freedom, where a simple act like praying together in home-churches “Sounds like an act of civil disobedience.”
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Armed NOPO special police units are at the scene as Iranians take to the streets in downtown Enghelab (Revolution) Square in Tehran, Iran, on June 24, 2025. (Negar Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
He added, “Our organization considers the Islamic Republic’s massacre of all peaceful protesters to be a crime against humanity that should not go unpunished. There must be an end to the impunity that has for too long enabled this regime to commit crimes at home and abroad. Branding peaceful protesters as ‘terrorists’ and Christians who are persecuted every year as ‘Zionist mercenaries’, in addition to scapegoating There is nothing.”
He warned that “The regime of the Islamic Republic, since its inception, has demonstrated all the hallmarks of a totalitarian state. Most Iranians now realize that their fundamental rights have been stripped from them, including the freedom to choose their religion or belief, political self-determination, and even their lifestyle choices. Christians experienced this firsthand when Rev. Aristotle, an Anglican priest and convert to Christianity, Sayyah was assassinated in his church office less than 200 hours after the 1979 revolution.”
A comprehensive 2025 report titled “The Tip of the Iceberg” about the persecution of Iranian Christians was released by Article 18 in collaboration with Open Doors, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Middle East Concern.
A female Iranian Christian lights a candle at St. Mary’s Chaldean-Assyrian Catholic Church on Christmas Eve in downtown Tehran, Iran December 24, 2012. (AP)
According to “The Tip of the Iceberg” report, Mohammad Nasirpour, Tehran’s deputy prosecutor and head of the 33rd District Prosecutor’s Office, said in his June 2022 indictment against four Iranian Christians: “Armenians and Assyrian Christians in the Protestant denomination, with their evangelical nature and mission to Christianize Iran, are considered a security threat to the Islamic revolution, which aims to undermine the Islamic foundations of the republic. It Persian-speaking evangelical movements can be said to be supported by fundamentalist evangelical Christians and Zionists.”
According to a February 10 report on Christianity Today’s website, Iranian Christians want President Trump to intervene to stop the ayatollah’s regime from continuing the genocide of Iranians.
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“This is probably one of the most frustrating aspects of the whole situation right now,” said Shahrukh Afshar, founder of the Fellowship of Iranian Christians. “Everyone was expecting him to do something,” Afshar told the outlet after Iranian authorities killed thousands of protesters in January, according to some estimates.
Cars are burned on the street during a protest over the fall in the value of the currency in Tehran, Iran on January 8, 2026. (Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)
Fox News Digital has reported for decades on the high-intensity persecution of Iranian Christians by the Islamic Republic in the wake of the growing popularity of Christianity in the Muslim-majority country. The Iranian regime targets diverse groups of Christians, including evangelicals and Catholics. In 2017, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested two Christians – a mother and her son – as part of a brutal crackdown on Catholicism in the country’s West Azerbaijan province.
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The family Bible and literature on Christian theology were also confiscated during the raid.
The United States Department of State has designated Iran as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) because the Islamic regime “has engaged in or tolerated particularly serious violations of religious freedom” in relation to violations of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The Iranian regime-controlled Statistical Center of Iran claims there are 117,700 Christians of recognized denominations as of the 2016 census, according to the latest US State Department report on the plight of Iranian Christians.
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However, the State Department notes that, “Christian advocacy NGO Article 18 estimates there are 500,000 to 800,000 Christians in the country, while Christian advocacy NGO Open Doors International estimates the number at 1.24 million. Christian NGOs report that many Christians are converts from Islam or other recognized religions.” The population of Iran is approximately 92 million.
