U.S. State Department Condemns Iran’s Persecution of Christians

The U.S. State Department condemned Iran’s intensified repression of Christians, citing the case of a Catholic woman held in Tehran’s Evin prison. Fox News reported that the statement addressed widespread human rights violations by the Iranian regime and came as the U.S.

Conducted new military strikes in response to Tehran’s attacks on commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Ghazal Marzban, 42, was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for practicing her Christian faith after converting from Islam. Iranian experts told Fox News Digital that Marzban, an Islamic law graduate, was banned from taking her bar entry examination following her conversion.

Her husband, who also converted, has been denied medicine for his Parkinson’s disease, according to Article 18. As of late May, Marzban’s physical health had deteriorated while on hunger strike, though her current condition remains unknown. A State Department spokesperson stated, “We are aware of these reports.

The spokesperson added that human rights and fundamental freedoms are completely ignored in Iran and called for the immediate release of all political and wrongfully detained prisoners. President Trump cited reports that the regime killed as many as 45,000 demonstrators in a 48-hour period in January, including as many as 22 Iranian Christians.

Fox News reported that arrests of Christians rose from 139 in 2024 to 254 in 2025, with at least 11 people receiving prison sentences of over a decade for Christian-related charges.

On July 3, Hengaw reported that Iranian authorities plan to seize St. Peter Church in Tehran, a compound housing roughly 20 Armenian and Assyrian families, under a 1998 Revolutionary Court order. Mansour Borji, executive director of Article 18, told Fox News Digital that the targeting of Christians began in the earliest days of the 1979 revolution and forms part of a long-standing pattern of systematic pressure on independent Christian communities.