U.S. Zeal for Iran's Non-Muslims Faulted

One Armenian Christian businessman in Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his family's persecution-based application for legal U.S. residence, struggled to come up with a list of reasons to leave Iran. For more than a decade, he said, he had been looking for reasons to stay.

"One, our Iranian passports are useless; we need visas for every country. Two, the Iranian economy is destroyed. Three, my daughters are forced to wear the Islamic head scarf," he said. The 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the businessman continued, had increased the sense of uncertainty. "There are foreign threats, there might be a war. We feel pressure every day."

Sitting in his dining room, he took another sip of cognac, which like all other alcoholic drinks is illegal for Muslims to consume in Iran, and smiled wearily. "I guess our reasons for migrating are no different from other Iranians who want to go. But as Christians, it's so much easier for us to leave Iran."

Betkolia, the Assyrian Christian parliament member, said he and his co-religionists were "freer in Iran than our Muslim brothers." The politician sat in his large office in the Assyrian club in Tehran. "We can drink, our boys and girls can mingle in our clubs freely and we can dance and sing," he said. "Muslims are not allowed to do those things in here."

Members of the Bahai faith, however, face arrest and other forms of persecution, according to U.S. and other officials. Followers of Bahaism, which was founded in 19th-century Persia and emphasizes religious unity and racial equality, are not allowed to practice their religion or study at universities. The government regards the faith as heretical, while Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians are respected as being members of traditional monotheistic religions.

In the Church of Prophet Joseph, one of the last 10 remaining Christian churches in Tehran, small events reminded Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Ramzi Garmo, 63, of the continuing exodus.

An older clergyman entered the archbishop's office. "Two more papers, bishop," the man said.

"Two more departures," Garmo concluded. He stamped the forms with his pastoral seal. "These papers prove that these youths are Assyrian Chaldean," he explained. "With this they can prove they are Christian during their interviews with HIAS in Vienna," Garmo said.

"Last Christmas my church was half-empty, while some years ago even the courtyard would have been full," said Garmo, who is originally from Mosul, Iraq. He started preaching in Iran more than 31 years ago, when his diocese included 30,000 people. Now there are 3,000. "People don't realize they leave for a country where men can get married to men, abortions are legal and divorces are easy," the archbishop said. "Being a Christian in America is much harder than being a Christian in Iran, believe me."

He glanced around the room, adorned with crosses and a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI, and fell silent. "But I should put myself in my congregation's place," he continued. "If an Iranian family can't afford to pay rent, is unemployed and is fearful of a war with America, who am I to forbid them from leaving?"

Betkolia explained that two laws are problematic for members of minority religions in Iran. When a single family member converts to Islam, the Muslim is entitled to inherit all the family's property. A second law prescribes that a Muslim who kills a non-Muslim cannot receive the death penalty.

"These rules date back to 70 years ago," Betkolia said, explaining that a similarly discriminatory statute on blood money was changed six years ago. "Those other laws are being reformed, but step by step," Betkolia said.