wfn.org | Worldwide Ministries Prepares to Help Iranian Christians Outside

[PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org]

2-October-1996 
 
 
96399         Worldwide Ministries Prepares to Help 
                 Iranian Christians Outside Iran 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-- Getting emergency assistance to Iranian Christians living 
as refugees outside Iran will be the focus of an authorized but 
not-yet-developed program within the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD).       
 
           
 
     Funding for the program will come from available restricted funds and 
endowments related to Iran, some of which have been frozen because of the 
political situation there and the federal government's embargo on trade. 
 
     "This is a need-driven initiative," said the Rev. Victor Makari, the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s liaison to the Middle East, who reminded the 
WMD Committee that it renewed its mission commitment both to Iran and to 
Iranians over a year ago.  "Now," he said, "we need to flesh out the 
program." 
 
     Fleshing it out could take a number of forms, but what repeatedly 
emerges in preliminary conversations is the need for emergency help for 
Iranian families who are stranded far from home, cut off from most, if not 
all, financial resources and denied work permits because of their refugee 
or illegal status. 
 
     "It takes a long time," said the PC(USA)'s mission specialist to 
Iranians in the United States, Farshid Hakim of Cheshire, Conn., describing 
the plight of Iranians who have left Iran and are waiting in other 
countries for United Nations interviews that will classify them as refugees 
or who are trying to legally emigrate to another country.  "They may want 
to get to the United States but be living in Europe.  ... 
 
     "And they don't have the money to live," Hakim said, adding that 
getting legal help to apply for visas or to present an appeal to the United 
Nations for refugee status -- which will provide some minimal assistance if 
granted -- costs money too. 
 
     The majority of Christians who leave Iran head for Turkey -- where no 
visa is required for at least three months -- or Pakistan, India or Europe, 
according to Iranian Christians International (ICI), a charitable 
organization in Colorado Springs that assists Iranian refugees by providing 
documentation for visa applications and locating sponsors to help with 
resettlement.  "We believe about 1,000 Christians flee Iran per year. ...  
 
     "But if the borders were open ... it would be a huge number," said 
Ebrahim Ghaffari of Colorado Springs, ICI's executive director, who left 
Iran in 1978 just prior to the Islamic revolution.  He said time stranded 
abroad varies, but an average wait is up to 14 months in Turkey or more 
than 18 months in India just to process documents through another country's 
immigration offices.   
 
     "It's terrible," said Ghaffari.  "The United Nations doesn't give an 
answer why it's taking so long ... or [officials will say]  We don't 
believe your stories.'  And on top of that, these people fled, left 
everything back in Iran.  Some are able to get support from other family 
members [living in other countries]. ... 
 
     "But it's not a good situation at all," Ghaffari said, adding that 
availability of health care is another dilemma that varies country to 
country.  Public services are weak in places like India but are generally 
available in European settings. 
 
     Ghaffari said that he knows at least one family that has given up and 
gone back to Iran because of the complexities of legally emigrating, but 
few want to return, fearing repercussions running the gamut from detention 
to torture.  
 
     Protestants often face more intense harrassment in Iran than Orthodox 
or Assyrian Christians, whose traditions are understood to be Oriental -- 
and not Western -- in origin.  But Protestants, while undeniably ethnically 
Iranian, often face official and unofficial harrassment in Iran's 
ideologically Islamic state, where apostasy is an offense that can be 
punishable by the state and where ties to what some consider Western values 
can bring about social ostracism.  So even if the state takes no action 
against more evangelical Christians, fanatic Muslims may do so -- and the 
state is reluctant to provide protection. 
 
     Hakim said those who convert to Christianity from a Muslim background 
are often rejected by their own families. 
 
     Since the government prohibits evangelism by law, those who aid that 
conversion may -- and do -- face a number of forms of harrassment.  A few 
years ago, such punishment came in the extreme when one Assemblies of God 
pastor was executed. Three other ministers, including one Presbyterian, 
were assassinated in 1994.  "There are two primary reasons for persecution 
-- if a Muslim leaves Islam, there is severe punishment, or if [one tries] 
to lead a Muslim from Islam," said Ghaffari, who said evangelical 
Christians face greater strictures than some other communions.  
 
     "Those who are ministers and church workers -- we have a 
responsibility to help them, particularly when they are under threat," said 
the Rev. Mehdi Abhari, a WMD administrator who supervises the division's 
financial transactions.   
 
     "We need to help them start [over] with a decent living," he said. "We 
need to provide some financial assistance until they get on their own 
feet." 
 
     Abhari said the PC(USA) has given some assistance to three Iranian 
refugee families and hopes to have a plan for an organized program in place 
by the February meeting of the General Assembly Council. 
 
     "It's a very tragic situation," said David Weaver, the National 
Council of Churches' liaison to the Middle East, speaking of Iranian 
Christians who felt compelled to leave the country.  "These people are 
thoroughly Iranian.  Their families are there.  And they themselves feel 
that Iran is their home." 

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