JAWAD and ZEYNAB

I (Jawad) was born in Iran in 1980 during the time my family lived as Arab refugees in Iran. I lived there my whole life until I fled Iran in 2013. I never possessed citizenship because my father was an Arab refugee. Citizenship in Iran passes down through the father alone.  A mother’s citizenship is irrelevant. Because my father was an Arab refugee, it was impossible for me or him to receive Iranian citizenship. This also affects my young daughter, Roya, who is now 8. My wife and Roya’s mother is an Iranian citizen. But because I do not have citizenship, neither does my daughter. She is not entitled to go to school or receive benefits of any sort in Iran.

Following the fall of Sadaam Hussein, the Iranian government repossessed the residence permits of the Arab Shiites in Iran, again indicating they did not recognize us as citizens. My father’s residence permit was taken from him by the Iranian government at this time. He no longer had identification of any kind. Without Iraqi citizenship or any identification at all to fall back on, he remained in Iran without legal protection as a stateless person.

I am a member of a persecuted Arab minority in Iran. My clan is viewed as “revolutionary” and disloyal to the government. Our people are subject to arbitrary detention, unjust imprisonment, torture, starvation, and forced disappearance. 

In Iran I was the direct subject of police harassment and violence. Because I was an Arab refugee, I was unable to work, possess land, or go to school. My family and I had to rely on the good graces of other Arabs to survive. In Kuzestan where we lived, a local family sheltered us, providing us with some land and a place to live. This family was very politically active. In exchange for giving me a place to live and means to eat, the family asked me to help them with their political activities. Each year at the anniversary of the 2005 uprising (see the Human Rights Watch report), I would distribute literature to families throughout the region that advertised protest activities. The last time I did this I had an experience that made me fear for my life should I remain in Kuzestan. I was on a motorbike with my brother carrying anti-regime literature. On our way home, we came across an impromptu checkpoint police had erected. (Such checkpoints are a common feature in Kuzestan. Arabs are not allowed to move freely from one area to another without prior police permission. But since I didn’t have any identification, I could never so much as seek permission. I normally could pay a bribe to police to allow me to access different areas, which I did more than 10 times. But since this time I was carrying anti-regime propaganda, I would have been killed or imprisoned had I stopped at the checkpoint.) Rather than stop where the police had erected the barrier and risk imprisonment and torture, my brother and I raced straight through the checkpoint on my motorcycle. The police immediately opened fire. Somehow, by the grace of God, my brother and I were able to get through the checkpoint and beyond the reach of the police’s bullets without being shot. Aside from when my boat capsized off the Indonesian coast, this was the most frightening experience of my life. I realized I could not hide from or bribe my way through police authority forever. I lived with a political family and I would be discovered. And if the police ever put me in prison, they would torture me (see the third article in para. 13 above). And if they were to torture me or even if they killed me or anyone in my family, my family would have no way to sue the government. In Iran, we have no rights. We are less than dogs. Even the Iranian government doesn’t torture its dogs. But as Arab stateless refugees, I can be tortured and killed. I have no rights. I am no one.

Fearing imminent arrest or death at the hands of police forces, and unable to do any number of things citizenship in Iran requires, such as open a bank account, receive proper medical care, put my daughter in school, or be protected by the law against abuse or violent acts by authorities, I fled. Adding to my fear, a close friend of mine with whom I distributed protest materials was imprisoned. The most likely penalty for him is death. It is likely he has been tortured and forced to confess the names of those who participated in anti-regime activities with him. What if I were now to return? Where would my processing through the Iranian government lead? Certainly it would lead to prison and possibly worse. What if the government found out I have converted to Christianity, in addition to being part of a persecuted ethnic minority engaged in anti-government political activities? What would happen to me then? 

I arrived in Indonesia after I was rescued from the water following the capsizing of the boat that was to take my family to Australia.  I, my wife, and our then three-year-old daughter spent around 16 hours in the water before we were rescued. Around 125 other individuals perished in this traumatic accident. I was separated from my wife, Zeynab, and child, Roya, while we were in the water. The whole time I was in the water I pleaded to God to please save Zeynab and Roya. I told him I could not live without them and to please protect them. After being rescued from the water, my family and I were imprisoned for 30 days in Sukabumi. The boat accident, time in the water where I was separated from Zeynab and Roya, and ensuing imprisonment was traumatic and life-changing. Our ordeal was covered in the media. My daughter, Roya, appears at 12 seconds. She’s in the red jacket. She's later in a pink shirt. Zeynab, my wife, appears at 15 seconds into the video. She's on the motorcycle. 

I met the pastor of the Indonesia Bethel Christian Church, Rudy Pitoy, upon arriving in Jakarta and accepting an Iranian acquaintance’s invitation to attend a service there. Pastor Pitoy listened to the account of my journey to Indonesia and told me something I’ll never forget. He told me the reason I did not perish in the water when my boat capsized off the coast of Indonesia was because Jesus Christ had saved me and my family. I was intrigued by what he said. Did Christ really have such power as that? Had he in fact answered my desperate pleas during those 16 hours in the water? I began attending church to find out answers to those questions. The answer came quickly and unexpectedly. One night, just a couple weeks after beginning to ask those questions, I had a dream in which a man in a white robe told me that I should follow the path I was learning about at church. I woke up startled and told Zeynab about the dream. The whole of the next day I continued to ask questions about Christianity. Then the dream recurred the next night! In it the same man appeared. This time he asked why I hadn’t listened to him the first time. I knew then that God was telling me I needed to become a Christian. I was baptized in the Church the very next week on September 13, 2013, a month after my registration with UNHCR. 

I began to organize Bible study classes in my apartment. Although I often gathered with Christians with more experience than I had, I was in charge of the lessons. I would direct the study of Bible stories and Christ’s teachings. I held these classes each week for more than a year, when I began attending another Christian church that I felt more closely adhered to Christ’s teachings. I have attended the new Christian Church each week with my family for more than two years. I also volunteer to clean the chapel along with fellow Church members and to do anything else I can to serve Christ. I do this because Christ saved my family led me on this path. I would be happy to submit the names of any number of witnesses to corroborate my attendance and sincere conversion.

Following years of careful study and consideration, my wife, Zeynab, was baptized in the Christian church we currently attend at the beginning of this year. She is convinced this is the path Christ wants her and the family to be on.

The Christian church I and my family belong to has a policy against offering financial assistance to refugees. It does not offer me financial assistance in return for attending church or for any other reason. Many churches have offered financial assistance in return for attendance in their congregations. But I attend the church I do because I feel it is where Jesus Christ wants me to be. If I were forced to return to Iran, I will continue to worship openly as a Christian regardless of what might happen to me or my family. Anything less would be to deny my conscience and to go against God. 

An Iranian refugee girl who had been assigned to live with my family after her mother died following the boat accident observed the Bible study classes I organized in my apartment . She came to church voluntarily each week. When she returned to Iran, she told my and my wife’s family about my conversion to Christianity.  A Farsi-language article about her experience in Indonesia, including the fact that she stayed with me and Zeynab, appeared in an Iranian paper. Many people in my tribe and extended family found out about my conversion to Christianity through her. 

Since learning about my conversion, my extended family has made threats against me to my parents. My mother and father believe that my relatives will seek to kill me if I ever return to Iran. We have a saying in my community: “If one apple is rotten, destroy it before the whole basket becomes ruined.” Members of my family have used that saying when speaking to my parents about my conversion to Christianity. Where I come from, honor is everything to a family.  By leaving Islam and converting to Christ, I have dishonored my family. My family (including my extended, adopted Asakereh, family) is very Arab and very religious. They also don’t trust or respect governmental authority in Iran (see para. 13). They know the Quran prescribes death for those who apostatize from the faith and are willing to enforce what the Quran dictates. My life will be in danger were I ever to return to Iran.  From my community’s perspective, I have shamed them and violated the express dictates of the Holy Koran and Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him).

My wife has also converted to Christianity.  Following her weekly attendance at Christian church for over three years now, she was baptized in early 2017. My wife’s family does not yet know about this, but I fear their reaction when they find out. After they found out about my conversion, they forbade her from remaining married to me. She has ignored their request to divorce me and is committed to refusing them even if she is forced to return Iran. I fear her family may take violent reprisals against her or me for shaming them, particularly when they find out about her own baptism. My daughter also has been attending church weekly for three years and we have not taught her about Islam as our family is now Christian. She would be further persecuted if she returned to Iran. 

I know that, at a minimum, I will face imprisonment from state authorities were I to be sent back to Iran. And I could face far worse. But I cannot deny the witness I have received, and I would not pretend to be anything but what I am—a Christian—whatever may happen to me.  

I have spent most of my life hiding from authorities in Iran because I am Arab and stateless (see Section II above). At any moment I could be taken to jail. What rights would I have? The only way I have avoided this fate is through paying bribes to police. Because I am Arab, I am at increased risk for arbitrary detention and punishment. Were I return as an Arab Christian, the risk I would face would be exponentially greater. (Please remember, as mentioned above in paragraph 13 and 14, Arabs face severe persecution from the Iranian government on account of their ethnicity.)

I face a triple-challenge: I am a Muslim convert to Christianity, an Arab, and stateless. I face threats from my community on account of my Christianity, threats from the Iranian government on account of my Christianity as well as my Arab ethnicity, and I lack any legal protection in Iran because I am stateless. Returning to Iran would require a life of endless hiding—from my tribe, from my family, and from the Iranian government. But how can I hide when the first action upon my return will be my processing—and detention and imprisonment—by the government? That is something I cannot avoid.