Renewed calls for release of Armenian Christian sentenced to 10-years in Iran’s Evin Prison on charges of ‘deviant proselytizing’

TEHRAN — An Armenian national, Hakop Gochumyan, has been serving a 10-year sentence at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison since February 2024, after being convicted on what rights groups condemn as “unfounded” charges of “deviant proselytising.” His latest appeal for a retrial was rejected this week, prompting fresh international calls for his immediate release.

According to Article18, Gochumyan, 36, and his wife Elisa Shahverdian — the Iranian-Armenian daughter of a prominent former church leader — were arrested on 15 August 2023, during a family holiday in Pardis, just outside Tehran. Plainclothes agents from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence raided the home where the couple were dining with friends, confiscating personal belongings, including Christian books, before taking both spouses to Evin Prison and leaving their two young children, then aged seven and ten, with relatives.

In solitary confinement within the Ministry-controlled Ward 209, the couple endured prolonged interrogation sessions lasting up to five hours each, without formal charges or access to legal counsel — violations of both Iran’s own constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party. Elisa was released on bail in October 2023, after her family successfully protested a reduction from $100,000 to $40,000. She has since returned to Armenia to care for their children.

Hakop remained behind bars. In February 2024, a Revolutionary Court judge invoked Article 160 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, which permits convictions based on “personal intuition,” to hand down a decade-long sentence. Prosecutors alleged he led “a network of evangelical Christianity” and engaged in “illegal Christian activities,” though evidence reportedly consisted solely of his possession of seven Persian-language New Testaments and visits to several churches during his visit.

After his appeal was dismissed in June 2024, Gochumyan submitted two applications for a retrial, on in February and the other in April, but both were categorically rejected by Iran’s Supreme Court. In a letter published by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), he described the charges as “completely unfair and false” and recounted severe human-rights violations during his detention, including denied access to his lawyer, unauthorized recordings of confidential meetings, and threats likening his fate to that of murdered church leader Haik Hovsepian.

Human-rights observers note that the authorities frequently exploit national-security charges to suppress non-Shia religious activities. In 2023 alone, Article18 documented 166 arrests of Christians — one-third for simply owning multiple copies of the Bible — while at least 21 believers remained imprisoned at year’s end. Despite Iran’s official recognition of Armenian and Assyrian Christian minorities, any proselytizing in Persian is strictly forbidden, forcing many converts to worship in secret “house-churches” and exposing them to arbitrary detention and harsh sentences.

International bodies, including the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), continue to classify Iran as a “country of particular concern” for its abysmal record on religious liberty. As evangelical Christianity reportedly grows underground, advocates warn that state sponsored intimidation and the use of “personal intuition” clauses in court verdicts have created an atmosphere of pervasive fear among Iran’s religious minorities.

With his legal avenues exhausted and prison authorities refusing to reconsider his case, Gochumyan’s predicament has become emblematic of the broader struggle for religious freedom in Iran. Advocacy groups are now intensifying efforts to spotlight his plight ahead of the United Nations’ upcoming review of Iran’s human-rights record.