IRANIAN COUPLE DIE AFTER SECRET POLICE ATTACK
Roberto Sanchez Guevara

Religious Intelligence Ltd
Wednesday, 13th August 2008. 9:43am
UK

An Iranian Christian couple in their 60s have died from injuries
sustained when secret police raided a house church service at their
house and severely beat them, a source told human rights group Compass.

Abbas Amiri died in hospital on July 30, 2008, and less than a week
after Abbas Amiri’s funeral, his wife, Rahnama died from similar
injuries and stress from her husband’s death, according to the Farsi
Christian News Network (FCNN).

Secret police raided the house church meeting hosted by Amiri and
his wife in Malek Shahr, just outside the middle Iranian city of
Isfahan. They beat and arrested all those in attendance, including
the two minors.

Following Rahnama’s death on Sunday, secret police in Masjid-Soleiman
put the Amiri family’s house under surveillance. They ordered the
family not to have a funeral service for Rahnama and said they had
to leave the city immediately.

Mervyn Thomas, Chief Executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide
(CSW) said: "It is devastating that gross human rights abuses continue
unabated in Iran Without the appropriate scrutiny and condemnation from
the international community. At a time when the world’s attention on
Iran is focused on the nuclear ambitions, the suffering of religious
minorities goes largely unnoticed.

"We call upon the British Government and the European Union to urge the
Iranian Government to conduct an independent enquiry into the deaths
of Abbas Amiri and Sakineh Rahnama and to cease arbitrary arrests,
detentions and mistreatment of religious minorities in the country".

Arrests and violence against Iranian Christians have intensified in
recent weeks. Twelve Christians traveling to Armenia via Tehran were
arrested on July 12 at the Kerman airport in south-central Iran. Two
Christian converts have been jailed for two months in Shiraz, one of
whom is diabetic and in critical condition.