Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali Haghnejad

Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali Haghnejad, a house church leader in the city of Anzali, is serving a six-year prison sentence for “acting against national security by promoting Christianity outside of churches.” This convert from Anzali was transferred from the city’s prison to Minab Prison in July 2023 without prior notice.

In July 2014, security forces arrested Matthias and two members of a house church in Anzali. These plainclothes officers entered the convert’s home, searched it, and confiscated personal belongings, including his computer, mobile phones, pamphlets, educational books, and his Bible.

Matthias, now in his 50s, has been arrested multiple times for his peaceful religious activities. In July 2014, security forces arrested Matthias along with Behnam Irani and Reza (Silas) Rabbani, other leaders of the so-called “Church of Iran” in Anzali. In October/November 2014, all three were sentenced to six years in prison in internal exile for “acting against national security,” “promoting Christianity outside of churches,” and “informing enemies of the Islamic Republic.” Matthias’s place of imprisonment was set as Minab, about 1,000 km from his hometown. Two months later, this verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal, and all three were acquitted of all charges.

In February and March 2019, security-intelligence forces raided house churches and the homes of converts in Rasht and Anzali, arresting Matthias and at least eight other converts. After preliminary interrogations, seven of them were released on bail of 150 million tomans in March, but Matthias and one other remained in detention. After a court date was set, five of them were summoned to court. Matthias, along with Shahrooz Eslamdoost, Behnam Akhlaghi, Babak Hosseinzadeh, and Mehdi Khatibi, faced a tenfold increase in their bail to one and a half billion tomans for insisting on their own chosen lawyer. Unable to provide this amount, they were transferred to Evin Prison. Judge Mohammad Moghiseh, nicknamed the “Judge of Death” for his harsh treatment of prisoners of conscience, denied their right to choose a lawyer and demanded they be defended by a court-appointed lawyer.

In October 2019, Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Moghiseh, sentenced all nine converts to five years in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion to act against national security.” On 25 February 2020, the appeal request of the nine Christian converts was rejected.

More than two years later, on 3 November 2021, judges of a Supreme Court branch accepted the retrial request of Matthias and his companions and, in an “unprecedented” ruling, declared that “promoting Christianity and forming a house church” is neither a crime nor “collusion to disrupt national security.” Two months later, all nine were released on bail pending the appeal court’s verdict.

On 28 February 2022, the Court of Appeal, upholding the Supreme Court’s decision, acquitted Matthias and the other converts in his case of the charge of “acting against national security.” The court’s well-reasoned verdict stated that there was insufficient religious and evidentiary basis to convict these Christian converts who were merely engaged in worship and praise, and that “the case files indicate that the named individuals engaged in worship and praise in a house church according to the teachings of Christianity, and there is no sufficient religious or positive evidence to establish the elements and conditions of the crime of acting against national security… and individuals in society cannot be deemed criminals and sentenced to punishment based on speculation and conjecture.”

However, Matthias, who had recently been released on bail, was summoned to the Anzali prosecutor’s office on 15 January 2022, and informed that his seven-year-old case had been reopened and his acquittal had been overturned by a new ruling. Thus, seven years after being acquitted in one court, and only a few weeks after being acquitted again of the same charge by the Supreme Court, he was transferred to Anzali Prison. In prison, Matthias learned that the head of the Alborz Province Judiciary had protested his acquittal in a letter to the Supreme Court. Consequently, the Second Branch of the Supreme Court upheld his previous six-year prison sentence. Shortly after, without warning or a chance to say goodbye to his wife Anna and daughter Hanna, he was transferred from Anzali Prison to Minab Prison to continue his sentence.

Nearly a year later, on 26 December 2022, while on furlough from prison, he was arrested at a Christmas celebration gathering in Bandar-e Anzali and transferred to Lakan Prison in Rasht. Thus, while serving his sentence, a new case was opened against him, this time involving his wife, Anahita Khademi, on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “disturbing public opinion.”

Matthias was released from Minab Prison on Saturday, 14 December 2024, after completing his sentence, including time previously served, allowing him to spend his 51st birthday with his family. However, the shadow of similar charges in the new case still hangs over him, his wife, and his daughter.