Iranian security forces shot and killed at least 19 Christians during last month's mass protests against the regime, according to a new report from Article 18, a religious freedom watchdog that tracks persecution inside the Islamic Republic.

Among the dead: Nader Mohammadi, a 35-year-old father of three, gunned down on January 8 in Babol in northern Iran. And Zahra Arjomandi, a 51-year-old mother of two, was shot dead the same day on the Persian Gulf island of Qeshm — more than 1,000 miles away. She died in her son's arms.

The regime held Arjomandi's body for six days before releasing it under strict security measures, imposing a media blackout and prohibiting any memorial service, according to Mohabat News, an Iranian Christian outlet. The message was unmistakable — even in death, the regime demanded control.

A regime that brands its victims

Article 18's February 9 report confirmed the toll spans Iran's Christian communities — both those the state formally recognizes and those it does not. The organization stated:

"The total number of Christians confirmed to have been killed during the protests is at least 19, including members of Iran's recognized (Armenians and Assyrians) and unrecognized (converts) communities."

According to Fox News. Mansour Borji, Article 18's executive director, told Fox News Digital that the regime's playbook hasn't changed since its founding. The Islamic Republic treats any expression of Christian faith outside state-approved boundaries as subversion — then labels the people it persecutes as foreign agents.

"Our organization considers the Islamic Republic's massacre of all peaceful protesters a crime against humanity that should not go unpunished. There must be an end to the impunity that, for far too long, has enabled this regime to commit crimes like at home and abroad. Branding peaceful protesters as 'terrorists,' and Christians that are persecuted every year as 'Zionist mercenaries,' is nothing but scapegoating."

That word — "scapegoating" — does a lot of work, and it's exactly right. The regime arrests Christians for praying in house churches, indicts them for practicing their faith, then turns around and calls them tools of Zionism. The persecution creates the dissent, and the dissent justifies more persecution. It's a closed loop designed to eradicate a community while claiming self-defense.

The paper trail of persecution

This isn't speculation. The regime's own legal apparatus says the quiet part out loud. In June 2022, Mohammad Nasirpour — deputy prosecutor of Tehran and head of the 33rd District Prosecutor's office — wrote the following in an indictment against four Iranian Christians:

"Armenian and Assyrian Christians in the Protestant denomination, with their evangelical nature and mission to Christianize Iran, are perceived as a security threat to the Islamic Revolution, aimed at undermining the Islamic foundation of the Islamic Republic. It could be said that Persian-speaking evangelical movements are supported by fundamentalist evangelical Christians and Zionists."

Read that carefully. A senior prosecutor characterized the act of evangelism — sharing one's faith — as a national security threat requiring state prosecution. In the Islamic Republic, believing the wrong thing is indistinguishable from treason.

The crackdown stretches back decades. In 2017, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested two Christians — a mother and her son — in West Azerbaijan Province as part of a broader campaign against Catholicism. And as Borji noted, the killing started almost from day one:

"The Islamic Republic's regime has, since its inception, demonstrated all traits of a totalitarian state. Most Iranians have now come to realize that their fundamental rights have been taken away from them, including the freedom to choose one's own religion or belief, political self-determination and even their lifestyle choices. Christians were some of the earliest to experience this, when an Anglican priest and convert to Christianity, Rev. Arastoo Sayyah, was killed in his church office less than 200 hours after the 1979 revolution."

Less than 200 hours. The revolution was barely a week old, and a priest was already dead in his own church.

A community larger than the regime admits

The Islamic Republic's own census from 2016 claims just 117,700 Christians of recognized denominations live in a country of roughly 92 million people. That figure is a fantasy crafted to minimize the community's existence. Article 18 estimates between 500,000 and 800,000 Christians in Iran. Open Doors International puts the number at 1.24 million.

The gap between the regime's count and independent estimates tells its own story. When you criminalize conversion, surveil house churches, and imprison believers, people stop identifying themselves to state census takers. The regime suppresses the community, then points to the suppressed numbers as evidence that the community barely exists.

The U.S. State Department has designated Iran as a "Country of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, finding that the Islamic regime has "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom." Secretary of State Rubio has revoked Iranian officials' U.S. travel privileges over the deadly protest crackdown.

What Iranian Christians are asking for

Borji framed the January protests not as isolated unrest but as the inevitable result of nearly five decades of totalitarian control:

"Today, Christians, like millions of other Iranians, seek the freedom and justice that they have been denied for nearly five decades, and they know well that this comes at a price. Every year many Christians are arrested and imprisoned under torturous conditions for practicing their right to religious freedom, where a simple act like praying together in house-churches seems like an act of civil disobedience."

A simple act like praying together. That's the threshold for state violence in the Islamic Republic.

According to a Christianity Today report from February 10, some estimates place the total number of protesters killed in January in the thousands. Shahrokh Afshar, founder of the Fellowship of Iranian Christians, captured the frustration of a community watching the world's response:

"That's probably one of the most frustrating aspects of the whole situation right now." "Everyone was hoping he would do something."

The world's oldest double standard

Western progressives who fashion themselves champions of religious minorities have maintained a conspicuous silence on Iran's systematic war against its Christian population. The same voices that will organize campus protests over perceived slights in American life cannot seem to locate Iran on a map when Christians are being shot in the streets.

This is a regime that kills priests in their offices, holds a mother's body hostage from her family, prosecutes believers for praying, and brands peaceful worshippers as Zionist agents — all while sitting on various UN human rights bodies and receiving diplomatic courtesies from nations that claim to value religious liberty.

Nader Mohammadi left behind three young children. Zahra Arjomandi died in her son's arms, and the state wouldn't even let her family mourn. They are two of at least 19 Christians the regime has confirmed killed — and the real number is almost certainly higher.

The Islamic Republic has operated with impunity for 47 years. That impunity is the problem — and ending it is the only answer that matters.