Iran (MNN) — Iran is intensifying crackdowns on anything perceived as “Western.”

On April 13 – the same day Tehran launched drone attacks on Israel – the regime also announced a new campaign called Noor, or “light” in Persian. The campaign increases efforts by the morality police to punish women not wearing hijab in public.

The header photo shows an Iranian woman. (Photo courtesy of TruedynamicPhoto, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Iranian women who’ve been arrested without head coverings say they are physically and verbally assaulted — accused of loving the West and loving America.

Iranian Christians are also ostracized and treated with suspicion for ties to the West.

An annual report released by Article18 in February shows a similar number of Christians were arrested in 2023 from previous years. However, fewer Iranian Christians in 2023 were willing to allow their faces and names to be publicized due to growing fears of backlash.

Joe Willey with SAT-7, a Christian satellite television broadcaster in the Middle East and North Africa, says they recently heard from one Iranian Christian viewer who was denied a job opportunity.

“He had applied for a job with an excellent salary. But he also had to write his religion and he wrote Christian/Protestant…. But the owner sadly just said, ‘If you were not a Christian, then with your experience, your capabilities, you would go into management in the IT department. You’d get an excellent salary. But we do not employ Christians.’”

SAT-7 PARS’ television programs in Farsi are challenging the narrative on Christians in Iran.

By broadcasting via satellite and utilizing social media, they can reach across closed borders and connect with Iranians who might otherwise never hear the Gospel.

(Photo courtesy of SAT-7 PARS)

Willey says, “SAT-7 exposes people who are not Christians to Christians and Christian theology, Christian thought. How do Christians act? Why do Christians say what they say?

“So it is a tool to make the Gospel available, to make God’s love visible to people who may have preconceived notions about Christians.”

To believers around the world, Willey says we can be encouraged by the example of persecuted Iranian believers.

“There are those in Iran, there are those in the Middle East who are certainly firm and strong in their face — that they would say, ‘No, I am a Christian,’ even if it means not getting a job, not having an opportunity that would be a benefit; but also in more extreme cases, physical harm and worse.”

Please pray for women and other marginalized minorities in Iran to know their worth in Christ! Ask God to give local believers wisdom and boldness as they share their faith.

Learn more about SAT-7 here.

 

Header photo courtesy of Zahra Amiri/Unsplash.