Source: Middle East Concern, February 28, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[On February 28] a verdict was issued by Branch 34 of Tehran\u2019s Appeal Court overturning the convictions of nine Christian converts from Rasht.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nine were initially arrested at their homes over several weeks in January and February 2019. On July 24, 2019, they were each convicted of endangering state security and promoting Zionism and sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a surprise development, on November 2, 2021, the Supreme Court ordered a review of their sentences on the basis that promoting Christianity and \u201cZionist evangelism\u201d in private homes is not an example of \u201cgathering and collusion against internal or external security\u201d as decided in the original verdict. Additionally, this case is not considered to meet the definition of the establishment of groups aiming to disrupt national security as defined by the penal code. Furthermore, according to this legal statement, promoting Christianity and establishing a house church are not considered crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read the full story<\/a>. Note some serious charges remain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Middle East Concern, February 28, 2022 [On February 28] a verdict was issued by Branch 34 of Tehran\u2019s Appeal Court overturning the convictions of nine Christian converts from Rasht. The nine were initially arrested at their homes over several weeks in January and February 2019. On July 24, 2019, they were each convicted of … Continue reading Iran: Nine Christian Converts Cleared by Appeal Court<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10868,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10867\/revisions\/10868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}