A group of at least 10 Iranian Christians are in legal limbo, fearing for their lives, after being given 30 days to leave Panama where they were deported by US authorities last month.
They had illegally entered the United States in the hope of being granted political asylum.
However, they were then caught up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants and deported.
That’s despite their Christian faith being a crime punishable by death in their home country.
One of the Iranians Artemis Ghasemzadeh told The New York Times how her Christian faith journey began with a chance visit to a church while traveling in Turkey and then blossomed within Iran’s heavily persecuted network of underground churches.
Members of her Bible study were arrested, and many church gatherings took place online for fear of an in-person gathering attracting unwanted attention from authorities.
That prompted Artemis and her brother to travel to Mexico where they hired a smuggler to take them across the border into the US which has legal protections in place for those seeking asylum because of severe religious persecution.
As expected, she was almost immediately detained and held for processing.
RECENT ILLEGAL ARRIVALS IN THE US WERE ALMOST IMMEDIATELY DEPORTED
However, rather than hearing her asylum case, US authorities instead quickly deported her to Panama, presumably for processing back to Iran.
Ms. Ghasemzadeh claims she repeatedly told officials she was an Iranian convert to Christianity and requested asylum based on the persecution she would face if she returned to Iran.
She discovered several other Iranian Christians had been deported with her.
The US Department of Homeland Security said none of those deported had formally requested asylum.
A spokeswoman claimed that: “Not a single one of these aliens asserted fear of returning to their home country at any point during processing or custody.”
Asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan who are also stranded in Panama, face similar persecution if returned to their home countries.
WHY CHRISTIANS FEAR BEING RETURNED TO IRAN
After the overthrow of the secular but authoritarian monarchy in 1979, Iran swung hard toward Islamist extremism.
Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern (ICC) says its constitution is a religious manifesto that quotes the Qu’ran extensively.
It adds that for religious minorities in Iran, there is no escape from the extremist policies of a government fueled by an extremist interpretation of Shia Islam.
Refoulement, or the forced return of refugees and asylum seekers to countries where they are likely to face persecution, is prohibited under numerous international treaties.
They include the Convention against Torture and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED).
The US is a signatory to the Convention against Torture, but has refused to sign the ICPPED.
Adherence to non-refoulement is, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: “an implicit guarantee flowing from the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights.”
The UN Office says the principle of non-refoulement applies to “all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status.”
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is putting pressure on the Panamanian government to prevent the Iranians from being sent back home, but their future remains uncertain.
Around the time they were deported, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raided a gathering of around 80 Christians in northern Iran, confiscating Bibles and arresting one of the attendees.
The White House issued a press release condemning Iran and appealing for protection of the Christians’ rights,
Source: International Christian Concern
Image: Shutterstock
