Bet-Kelia: A Religious Group Has Seized Land of a Church in Tehran

Younathan Bet-Kelia, the representative of Assyrians and Chaldeans in the Iranian Parliament, reported that a "group under the guise of a religious committee and under the pretext of establishing a Hosseiniyeh" has illegally seized land belonging to the Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in Tehran. In an interview with the Shargh newspaper on Wednesday, January 9, he stated: "For nearly two years, a group has illegally occupied the land of the Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church on Patrice Lumumba Street in Tehran under the pretext of establishing a Hosseiniyeh, and despite repeated visits and multiple investigations by officials, they continue their usurpation while claiming to be religious." Bet-Kelia added that he spoke with Ali Younesi, the special assistant to the President of Iran on ethnic and religious minorities, about this issue, but Younesi said, "There is nothing he can do." Bet-Kelia did not provide further details about this "religious committee" that has seized the land of the Assyrians. However, as reported by Shargh, the representative criticized the discrimination against religious minorities in Iran. Bet-Kelia referred to Article 881 of the Iranian Civil Code, which states that "a non-Muslim does not inherit from a Muslim," and said: "For years we have witnessed that in some religious minority families, one of the children declares they have converted to Islam and thus completely seizes the paternal inheritance, and based on this article, no share is given to their siblings or mother. Meanwhile, many of these individuals do not even believe in Islam and only use this legal loophole to seize family wealth and then leave the country." He posed the question, "If we are infidels, what are we doing in this Parliament?" Bet-Kelia's comments about the seizure of church land by a religious committee come at a time when he previously stated in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) in March 2014 that "the existence of multiple churches in Iran, even in the most remote villages, and the protection of some of them by Muslim brothers is a sign of the complete freedom and security of religious minorities in Iran." He also stated that "official religious minorities in the country have no problems in practicing their religious rituals, and the Constitution provides them with various privileges, including civil and religious rights." Accordingly, he stated that "false human rights claimants should know that religious minorities in Iran have a strong backing in the form of the Constitution, and all their rights are enshrined in it." It seems that Bet-Kelia's statements were a reaction to one of the reports by Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, which criticized the Islamic Republic's discrimination against women and religious minorities, such as Baha'is, Christians, and Dervishes. In the Constitution and other laws of Iran, Islam and the Twelver Shia sect are recognized as the only official religion, but Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews are also recognized as religious minorities. However, both in the Constitution and in other major laws of Iran, such as the Penal Code and the Civil Code, various limitations and differences regarding religious minorities are embedded. Furthermore, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognize religions such as Baha'ism and refers to them as "misguided sects." In recent years, pressures on churches in Iran have increased, and converts to Christianity have also faced severe repression. The laws and behavior of the Islamic Republic towards religious minorities have always faced negative reactions from international governments and organizations, although Tehran rejects all these criticisms, claiming that religious minorities live freely in Iran. For instance, Hassan Rouhani, the President, stated in April 2014: "There is no distinction between the followers of different ethnicities and religions in the Iranian Constitution."