Interview

Change

Freedom

Freedom of Belief

Middle East

29 January 2024

5 min read

Freedom of belief: The harsh scars of lived experience in Iran

Belle Tindal meets Dabrina, an Iranian contemporary, and compares their experience of living – from cars to believing.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A somewat beaten white car parked on the side of a street.

An Iranian street scene.

Foroozan Faraji on Unsplash.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me…’

Those are Jesus’ words. You may well recognise them, they’re among his most famous. Probably because they’re so darn bewildering, fairly uncomfortable too. At least, they are to me.

You see, I’ve only ever read these words. I’ve never actually lived them.

I read them on Wednesday morning, in fact. And there was nothing inspired, intentional or special about that. Nearly all of my days begin the exact same way - tucked up in bed with a cup of tea and an allocated chunk of Bible to read through – and, on Wednesday, it just so happened to be this chunk. It was a fairly mundane affair, business as usual. Except, on this particular Wednesday, which incidentally started with these particular words, I met someone for whom these words have been lived, not merely read.

Someone for whom these words hold memories and scars, for whom they are as precious in their truth as they are painful.

Someone who does not have the privilege of regarding these words as bewildering or uncomfortable, as I do.

On Wednesday, I met Dabrina.

I was fending off deadlines and 9am lectures. Dabrina was fending off sexual threats from the guards and physical assault at the hands of the interrogators.

Dabrina is from Iran, the ninth most dangerous country to be a Christian in the world. And on a bitterly cold January evening, she stood behind a podium in the Houses of Parliament, a place which has Bible verses etched into its very walls, and told us of her country, a place where belief in those very same verses is a punishable offense. With Christianity regarded as a conspiracy to undermine the Iranian government and Islamic law, much of the Christian way of life is illegal.

Gathering in large groups, illegal. House churches, illegal. Evangelism (or, more accurately, anything that is perceived to be evangelism), illegal. Teaching children, illegal. Translating the Bible into their own languages, illegal.

And not only that, but Christians are considered inherently ‘unclean’, second-class citizens in almost every way. A Christian in Iran could never be a doctor, a teacher, or a lawyer. They are also not allowed to touch food, meaning that they cannot work in retail or hospitality either. There are restrictions on what schools and universities they can attend, where they can go, and who they can socialise with. In short, they are persecuted. Christians in Iran are in danger, constantly.

I learnt all of this from Dabrina’s speech that day; a speech that left me wondering how on earth we can have so much, and yet so little, in common.

You see, both Dabrina and I believe that Jesus existed, and more than that, that he was and still is everything that he claimed to be - Son of God, light of the world, saviour to all – the whole thing. And we both try to live our lives accordingly. We have the same answers to the same questions, the same worldviews, the same God.

But the parallels get more specific than that.

Both of our parents led our local churches throughout our childhoods. But there’s a key difference; Dabrina grew up used to her father frequently disappearing with no explanation. Again and again, he would vanish, and she would be forced to anxiously await his return. I have never had to lay awake wondering if my dad was dead or alive.

I spent my teenage years working in a local coffee shop, relishing the first hints of what an independent life might feel like. Dabrina tried to get a job as a waitress too, but it was illegal for her to touch food, so she was turned away.

I spent my early twenties doing a theology degree and soaking up every moment of what I was told would be the most care-free years of my life. Dabrina spent her early twenties in an all-male prison.

I had friends who would (good-naturedly) roll their eyes at my Christian faith, wondering why I would willingly choose to wake up so early on a Sunday morning. Dabrina had friends who were spying on her and reporting the details of her life to the government.

I was fending off deadlines and 9am lectures. Dabrina was fending off sexual threats from the guards and physical assault at the hands of the interrogators.

I remember buying my first car, Dabrina remembers hers being tampered with by the authorities – on three occasions.

I live in the country I was born in. Dabrina has had to flee hers.

So, you see – While I read Jesus’ words about persecution, Dabrina lives them. Dabrina, and 365 million others around the world.

Talking to Dabrina was humbling, and astounding, and challenging - and a million other things too. The details of the trauma that she has gone through will undoubtedly continue to humble me for a long time yet, and I’m glad about that. But her answer to my final, and arguably ever-so-western, question left me utterly stunned. I asked why, after everything that she has been through and with every danger that it poses, is she still defiantly living a Jesus-shaped life. And her answer,

‘When you encounter God, when you encounter Jesus, when you are healed, when you witness signs and wonders, when you encounter the love of God as your father, as your saviour, as your provider – how can you walk away from that?

… When you’re in that much danger, you will cry out to God and he will meet you there.’

Here was a woman, for whom belief in Jesus has her caused physical harm, calling him a healer. A woman, whose faith in God has taken away her home and everything that she had built within it, calling him provider. A woman, whose Christian conviction has landed her in endless danger, calling God a saviour. A woman who told me that the Jesus I have got to know in comfort, she has seen show up in peril. A woman who told me stories of the underground church, which just so happens to be the fasting growing church in the world.

And in that moment, I thought about how much, and yet how little, I had in common with this incredible person before me.

And I thought about how mystifying it is that these 365 million people are hidden in plain sight, suffering under a blanket of silence, and how that surely cannot go on? And I pondered how so many people are being denied their freedom of belief, a basic human right, and yet we barely speak about it? And I felt indignant in a way that must infuriate those who have spent more than an evening engaging with this issue.

And then I thought back to that bewildering sentence from Jesus – where he puts the words persecution and blessed together - and realised that it is a sentence that I shall likely spend my life pondering, while Dabrina knows it to be totally and concretely true.

Explore Open Doors World Watch List.

Article

Comment

Freedom of Belief

Politics

20 October 2025

5 min read

The UN promised freedom of belief — but 80 years later, it’s still elusive

Flawed, fragile but still vital to those without a voice

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

Trump addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The White House.

It’s been 80 years since the United Nations was founded, at the end of the Second World War, primarily in an attempt to avoid a third global conflict.

So on that score, at least, I suppose one must accept that the UN has achieved its primary objective. But why, then, does the overall feeling towards the organisation today seem negative?

The UN’s founding charter outlined three other major goals alongside maintaining “international peace and security”: developing “friendly relations” among nations; international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural or humanitarian problems; and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, “without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”.

Given that the UN is comprised of 193 countries, it is perhaps little wonder that “friendly relations” and “cooperation” between all sides have not always been forthcoming, and that instead clear cliques have formed between Western countries on the one hand, and much of the rest of the world on the other. (Perhaps the clearest such clique at the moment is the 2021-founded “Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter”, the identities of whose members - China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, et al - may lead one to wonder what exactly it is in the UN charter they wish to defend. Short answer: “sovereignty”, code for doing whatever they wish, without interference.)

As for the pursuit of “human rights” - my primary focus as an employee of an NGO - perhaps the greatest obstacle remains the lack of a truly united consensus over which rights should be included in the definition.

The closest that the nations of the world have come to an agreement on this score was the adoption in 1948, three years after the founding of the UN, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was backed by 48 of 58 member states at the time, but which failed to secure the support of others, including apartheid South Africa, the former Soviet bloc, and Saudi Arabia.

A primary objection in the case of Saudi Arabia was to Article 18 of the declaration - the bit about religious freedom and which includes the claim that everyone should have the right to change their religion or belief, an issue that remains problematic for many of the not-so-united nations of the world today.

The UK, meanwhile, was happy to ratify the UDHR but expressed frustration at its lack of legal force, and it was nearly 20 years before another treaty, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, attempted to correct this.

But while the 174 signatories to the ICCPR - including Iran, Russia, Cuba and China (though the latter two without ever ratifying the treaty) - are at least on paper legally obliged to uphold this international treaty, the challenge of enforcement remains. For example, while the signatories of the ICCPR are obliged to provide freedom of religion as defined by Article 18 of the covenant, which closely resembles the same article of the UDHR, few practical tools exist to hold to account any state that fails to meet its obligations.

In the case of persistent violators like Iran - the focus of my work - it seems the best we can currently hope for is to see a “resolution” passed by the majority of member states, outlining the ways in which the particular violator has failed to provide its citizens with the religious freedom (among other things) that should be their right according to the international treaties it has signed, and calling on them to do better.

But when pariahs like Iran can merely continue to deny that such failures exist, call them “biased” and “political”, and all the while prevent access to the country to the independent experts (“Special Rapporteurs”) best able to ascertain the veracity of the allegations, such “resolutions” can at times appear rather hollow.

At the same time, for advocates of human rights in non-compliant countries like Iran, the public shaming offered by such resolutions at least provides an opportunity for otherwise voiceless victims to be heard on the international stage. And when real change inside the country can sometimes appear nigh-on-impossible, you tend to take the small wins, such as hearing the representatives of member states mentioning the names of individual victims or groups in the public arena.

Many mentions are made, for example, about the plight of the Baha’is during every UN discussion of human rights in Iran, and while it is less common to also hear about my own area of interest - the persecution of Christians in Iran - there is usually at least one mention, which for us advocates (and we hope also the victims we represent) provides some comfort and hope for future change.

So 80 years since the establishment of the UN, it is clear the organisation has much room for improvement, but I remain persuaded by the argument that if we didn’t have the UN, we’d have to invent it.

“Friendly relations” - a helpfully loose term - between our disunited nations will always be a challenge, but increased economic ties globally over the past 80 years have also provided potential pressure points for those who fail to follow the rules. (If, for example, Iran wishes to see sanctions removed, Western countries can and should continue to demand improvements in the area of human rights.)

As for the UN’s endeavour to see increased “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”, the question of what such rights and freedoms should entail will continue to be debated, with persistent areas of challenge including not only religious conversion but also abortion and same-sex relations.

It is not uncommon, for example, to hear representatives of Muslim states such as Iran questioning what Western nations really mean by “human rights” and accusing them of using the term only as a “pretext” for their own “biased” agendas.

But for all its challenges, 80 years after its establishment the UN continues to offer the only forum today where countries of contrasting beliefs can come together to discuss their differences on the world stage.

Whether that is a worthwhile exercise remains a matter for debate, but to the degree that it is, the UN remains the primary channel through which such conversations can take place.

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,500 articles. All for free.
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief

Pledge your gift