TEHRAN (LifeSiteNews) — A 42-year-old Iranian wife and convert from Islam to Catholicism has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, according to human rights watchdog organizations.
Ghazal Marzban Joorashari was convicted of charges relating to “propaganda against the state” and “gathering and collusion against national security.” The verdict was handed down by Judge Iman Afshari, who has overseen many similar trials against Christian converts in recent years and is known for handing down harsh sentences.
As reported by Article 18, a London-based organization which advocates for religious freedom in Iran, the allegations against Marzban Joorashari stem from her embracing the Christian faith and possessing religious materials.
Marzban Joorashari, a former law student barred from the bar exam after converting, was rearrested on January 15, 2026, during a raid on her Tehran home. Authorities confiscated her Bible and other Christian literature. She was taken to an unknown location, and following just one call to her husband two hours later, informing him she was being held at a Ministry of Intelligence detention center, she was cut off from any outside contact for a month.
During interrogations, officials pressured her to confess that the Christian materials they had confiscated were used for evangelism. She refused, asserting they were for personal use and that, as a Christian, she had the right to possess them. She was later transferred to the women’s ward at Evin Prison.
This latest sentence follows her November 2024 arrest when Marzban Joorashari protested legal harassment related to her faith and compulsory hijab rules with a one-week hunger strike in detention at the time. She spent two months in Evin Prison and was previously sentenced to six months’ imprisonment (one-third to be served) plus physical flogging with “74 lashes” for charges including “failing to observe compulsory hijab” and “propaganda against the regime.”
The Hengaw human rights organization also reported at the time that the Catholic convert sustained notable injuries to her ribs during the arrest.
Marzban Joorashari converted to Catholicism in 2019. Since then, she and her husband — also a Christian convert who suffers from Parkinson’s disease — have reportedly faced systematic pressure, including barriers to medication for his condition. Article 18’s executive director, Mansour Borji, noted that the imprisonment is effectively “a sentence for both of them” due to his health needs.
Christianity officially recognized in Iran, though proselytizing strictly prohibited
Iran remains a confessional state, privileging or protecting a state religion – in this case, Islam. And not unlike pre-Enlightenment nations in Christian Europe, and even Catholic Mexico just 200 years ago, Iran enforces threats to their state religion with laws, for example, punishing “propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Today we visited Vank Cathedral, a 355 year old church, one of 13 in Isfahan’s Armenian quarter.
Americans may be surprised to know Christians exist in Iran and are allowed to practice their religion freely. pic.twitter.com/DGHN95YUeH
— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) May 12, 2025
Though the Iranian constitution recognizes Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians as religious minorities in the Islamic nation with rights to practice their religion, with parliamentary seats reserved for each, Christian evangelization, proselytizing, or distributing Christian materials such as Bibles to the Muslim majority in the local language of Farsi is strictly prohibited.
The most severe penalties for such religious crimes are reserved for those like Marzban Joorashari who convert from Islam to another religion such as Christianity.
‘Christian converts from Islam face grave danger’
In July of last year, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued an updated report highlighting the “Islamic Republic of Iran’s continued violations of freedom of religion or belief both domestically and abroad.”
“For exercising their right of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including for changing their religion or belief, Christian converts from Islam face grave danger to their personal safety in Iran,” the report reads.
It cites examples of two people who were sentenced to 12 years in jail after a house raid revealed they were in possession of Bibles.
A woman who converted to Christianity was denied medical treatment in jail after she was imprisoned in April 2025 for “acting against national security through connections with Zionist Christian organizations.”
Armenian Christian leader Joseph Shahbazian has been imprisoned for conducting worship services in his home for Christian converts from Islam. He was previously arrested for his underground church activities, described by the state as “leading an organization that aims to disrupt national security.”
The USCIRF, an independent bipartisan agency under the U.S. Congress, which considers Iran an adversary state, also cited the case of Armenian Christian Hakop Gochumyan, who was handed a 10-year jail term in 2024 for “engaging in deviant proselytizing activity” and for his leading role in “a network of evangelical Christianity.” This conviction was reportedly based on his possession of seven New Testaments in Farsi and visits to a house-church while on holiday with his family in Iran.
Other cases have logged significant prison sentences, including even death in 1990 for a male convert from Islam to Christianity.
Catholic Church recognizes ‘duty’ of states to be confessional and obedient ‘to the rule of Christ’
Similar penalties have been imposed by Christian confessional states in the past, including in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages where apostasy, heresy and atheism were often equated to treason and could bring about punishments of property seizure, perpetual imprisonment or even death as in the unjust judgment against St. Joan of Arc.
More recently in Mexico, where the 1824 constitution declared the religion of the state be “perpetually” Roman Catholic and affirmed the nation would “protect it by wise and just laws, and prohibit the exercise of any other,” penalties were less severe. These could include the loss of citizenship, the ability to hold public office and to vote. And non-Catholic foreigners who promoted non-Catholic worship could be expelled from the country.
Indeed, the Catholic Church has consistently taught that not just individuals or families, but also nations themselves have a duty to confess respect and submission to the authority of Jesus Christ the King. Pope Pius XI taught in 1925 that the rulers of nations have a “public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ.”
And “once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony,” the pontiff wrote.
Vatican II: Human beings have a right to religious freedom, it is oriented to ‘the one Church of Christ’
While the Second Vatican Council affirmed “traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ,” they also proclaimed “the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.”
It is therefore also part of human dignity that the individual is “bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth.”
Thus, as the Council Fathers taught in Dignitatis Humanae, “the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature,” and is therefore a universal right.
“It follows that a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion,” the document reads.
“All the more is it a violation of the will of God and of the sacred rights of the person and the family of nations when force is brought to bear in any way in order to destroy or repress religion.”
Many Iranian Christians remain loyal to their ‘sacred homeland’ despite violations against religious freedom
While the approximately one million Christians of Iran enjoy legal recognition and the right to worship, they are simultaneously prohibited by their government to fulfill the command of their Lord Jesus Christ in making disciples of all nations.
Despite such tensions, at least many such Christians, and other religious minority Jews and Zoroastrians, remain loyal and patriotic to their Iranian nation.
For example, in response to Israel’s initial strikes upon their lands in June of last year, some prominent Jewish communities in Iran condemned the “Zionist regime” for its “savage” air raids against their nation, they called for their government to issue “a crushing and regret-inducing response that will make the Zionist regime repent its shameful deeds.”
Additionally, Christian and other minority leaders joined these voices to reaffirm national unity.
Speaking on behalf of Armenian Archbishop Sepuh Sargsyan of the Diocese of Tehran at the time, Arakel Kadehkian firmly condemned “Israeli atrocities” on Iranian civilians.
“Iran is not just our place of residence — it is our sacred homeland,” he said. “We condemn the attacks on Iranian soil and declare our full support for the Iranian people and leadership.”
Quoting from a recent message from the archbishop given at St. Sarkis Cathedral, he added: “The Iranian nation has overcome fire and sword for a thousand years. With God’s help, it will emerge victorious from this crisis too.”
RELATED:
‘Holy Virgin Mary’ metro opened in Iran amid repression of Christians
Daughter of a Hamas founder becomes Christian after a dream reveals Jesus as God
Catholics decry US, Iran, Israel bombings: ‘may diplomacy silence the weapons!’
EXCLUSIVE: Iran’s cardinal says peace only possible through ‘justice, mutual respect’
Iran jailed Christians for owning Bibles, denied medical care to convert: report