USCIRF Publishes Report on Religious Repression in Iran

Since the 12-day war with Israel and the United States, a bad situation has become even worse.

By Massimo Introvigne

August 1, 2025

Ashura Day in Qom, Iran. Credits.

On July 28, 2025, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) unveiled a new report on religious repression in Iran. The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The President and congressional leaders of both political parties appoint the Commissioners. The report offers a framework for analyzing how repression is institutionalized within state structures and sustained through ideological, technological, and transnational strategies.

Iran’s legal system remains deeply entangled with theocratic imperatives, whereby religious dissent or deviation is treated not as a civil matter but as a criminal threat to state stability. Statutory charges such as “Moharebeh” (Enmity against God) and “Fesad fel-Arz” (Corruption on Earth) continue to be employed against individuals expressing religious beliefs outside the sanctioned paradigm. Following the military confrontation with Israel and the U.S. in June 2025, Iran’s judiciary instructed prosecutors to expedite trials and intensify punishments for religiously based charges, including the imposition of the death penalty for alleged cooperation with Israel or the United States.

Mandatory hijab legislation serves as an instructive example of state-enforced religious conformity. While framed as cultural preservation, enforcement mechanisms—including biometric surveillance and public monitoring—reveal its utilitarian function as an instrument of ideological discipline. The killing of Mahsa Zhina Amini in 2022 for wearing “improper hijab” marked a turning point, after which authorities intensified crackdowns on women and girls who refuse to comply.

Religious minorities face particularly acute forms of marginalization. The Baháʼí community, Iran’s most significant unrecognized non-Muslim minority, numbering approximately 300,000, is subject to enduring discrimination. In February 2025, nine Baháʼís in Tabriz were sentenced to one year in prison for alleged membership in a group “opposing the Islamic Republic”. That same month, intelligence forces raided the home of Mahboub Habibi in Shiraz, seizing electronic devices and interrogating him for “propaganda against the regime.” In March, Faraz Agha Babaie was physically assaulted during interrogation after a raid on his home in Isfahan.

The government has particularly targeted Baháʼí women. In April 2025, Shahdokht Khanjani received an 11-year sentence for her religious activity. In May, authorities stormed the home of Sonia Todiee in Babol, confiscating her personal belongings under orders signed by Tehran’s Prosecutor General. Burial practices have also been obstructed: Baháʼí families in Rafsanjan were forced to pay exorbitant fees for burial permits, while trenches were dug outside cemeteries to block access.

A devastated Baháʼí cemetery in Yazd, Iran. Credits.

Christian converts from Islam encounter similar repression. In 2025, Iranian authorities transferred Christian prisoners without notice to overcrowded facilities such as Qarchak women’s prison following Israeli strikes on Evin Prison. The report also documents the case of Amir-Ali Minaei, a 31-year-old Christian convert who was beaten by a prison officer after requesting medical treatment, and Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, a 63-year-old who was returned to Evin Prison just two days after suffering a stroke in solitary confinement.

Iranian Jews, though officially recognized, are subjected to surveillance and antisemitic propaganda. In July 2025, Iranian state media released a music video with lyrics explicitly threatening Jews. Jewish citizens are required to vote at segregated polling stations, and antisemitic rhetoric is routinely disseminated through educational and media channels.

Sunni Muslims, particularly in Kurdish and Baluch regions, face extrajudicial executions and restrictions on religious infrastructure. Sunni clerics who speak out are met with arrest or violence, and their communities are denied access to religious education and places of worship.

Beyond its borders, Iran has extended religious repression through transnational mechanisms. The USCIRF report details Iran’s collaboration with criminal networks such as the Foxtrot and Rumba gangs in Sweden, as well as groups in the UK, Germany, France, and Belgium, to target Jewish sites and individuals. In Latin America, Iranian propaganda networks continue to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories like “Plan Andinia,” the false claim that Zionists plan to establish a Jewish state in Patagonia.

A book promoting the false “Plan Andinia” conspiracy theory in Argentina.

This extrapolation of domestic repression into international spheres marks a troubling development. The Iranian state appears intent on not only regulating belief within its borders but also shaping narratives and silencing dissent abroad.

While otherwise excellent and comprehensive, the USCIRF document does not explicitly discuss the repression of new religious movements, documented in the recent book by Sajjad Adeliyan Tous and James T. Richardson,” Managing Religion and Religious Changes in Iran: A Socio-Legal Analysis” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024).

The USCIRF report mentions the mistreatment in jail of Abolfazl Pour-Hosseini, a member of the Erfan-e-Halgheh (Mysticism of the Ring) movement. However, as Tous and Richardson demonstrate, the problem goes beyond a single movement. Iran has imported Western anti-cult rhetoric and literature, combined it with its general hostility to religious liberty, and passed an anti-cult law in 2021.

One of the new religious movements targeted by repression in Iran, and international slander spread by Iranian intelligence agencies, is the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a Shia-derivative new religious movement not to be confused with the Sunni-derivative Ahmadiyya community persecuted in Pakistan. The fact that AROPL is not mentioned in the USCIRF report showcases the need for additional efforts by human rights activists to make its tragic case known.

In general, the USCIRF report allows some conclusions about the Iranian case.

First, Iran exemplifies a model of religious repression that is structural and proactive. Laws, policies, and technologies are deployed to homogenize public belief and marginalize minority faiths.

Second, religious persecution in Iran exhibits intersectional characteristics: it disproportionately affects ethnic minorities, women, youth, and low-income populations.

Third, Iran’s transnational propaganda’s global reach in suppressing religious freedom calls for a reevaluation of diplomatic and legal frameworks. International organizations must enhance accountability mechanisms, including judicial recourse and targeted sanctions.

Fourth, scholarship plays a vital role. Researchers must continue to document and disseminate empirical findings on religious repression in Iran, including of new religious movements.

While Iran’s state apparatus is formidable in its attempt to extinguish religious plurality, it is not impermeable. Civil society actors and underground religious networks persist in defying these efforts—often at significant personal risk. They need our support.

Source: bitterwinter.org