According to Voice of the Martyrs Korea, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh and Joseph Shahbazian were both taken into custody by intelligence agents at their homes in the Tehran region on the morning of 6 February and then sent to the city’s notorious Evin Prison. 

Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley says that the reason for the re-arrests remains unclear and that the men may have been arrested as part of a wider operation targeting Tehran Christians.  

“Nasser is a Muslim background believer, while Joseph is Armenian-Iranian,” says Representative Foley.  
“Both were originally sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on charges of national security violations due to their involvement in house churches, but both had their sentences reduced and had been released and permitted to return to their homes.” 

Voice of the Martyrs Korea previously conducted a multi-year campaign urging Christians to send letters of encouragement to Nasser in prison. She says that Nasser’s health is not good due to a severe gum disease that worsened in prison. “His family worried that he would lose all of his teeth,” says Representative Foley. “Now that he is refusing to eat due to his re-arrest, we are urging Christians everywhere to pray for his health and stamina, and for Joseph as well.”  

Nasser, who is 63 years old, was released in October 2022 after serving nearly five years of a ten-year sentence, while Joseph, who is 60, was released the following September after spending just over a year in Evin. 

Nasser was previously arrested in June 2016 when 30 intelligence agents raided an engagement party at a house near Tehran. The court convicted Nasser based on a Ministry of Intelligence report that claimed he had attempted to undermine national security by establishing an “illegal house church network”. The court refused to present the report to Nasser’s lawyer, who was not allowed access to the government’s case file on his client.  

Nasser sent out a letter from prison on Jan. 31, 2020, published by Voice of the Martyrs Korea and other groups. He wrote in part, “I am confident in all hardships and I believe I will become free by Him who I have hope to (my Lord) because the Lord our God does not forget his children … so let me be bold and say, ‘The Lord is my helper.’”  

“Nasser is single and lived with his elderly mother before his previous imprisonment,” says Representative Foley. “His mother died one month after he was released from prison.” 

Armenian-Iranian pastor Joseph Shahbazian was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2022 on charges of ‘Acting against national security by promoting Zionist Christianity’. He was also sentenced to a two–year exile to follow his release, as well as a two–year travel ban and a two-year ban on membership in any church group.  

“In May 2023, his prison sentence was reduced to two years and the sentence of exile was lifted by the Court of Appeal after the court found ‘no sufficient reason for choosing the maximum punishment’,” says Representative Foley. “He was able to return to his family, which included his first grandchild born while he was in prison.” 

She says her organization hopes to add Nasser and Joseph to their prisoner letter writing program once details of their detention are confirmed. 

According to Representative Foley, writing letters to Christians imprisoned for their faith is a ministry often neglected by Christians. “Most Christians don’t realize that it is often possible to write letters to Christians like Nasser and Joseph, to encourage them while they are in prison,” says Representative Foley. “Christians assume that the letters would be blocked or would create further troubles for Christian prisoners, or they worry that they themselves will be tracked somehow for writing a letter. Sometimes they think that since they don’t speak the prisoner’s language, it is not possible to write. But our website maintains a list of prisoners in places where mail can be received, and where a simple letter of Christian encouragement will not create trouble for the prisoner or the letter writer. We provide the text in the prisoner’s language so that a letter can be easily cut and pasted. It’s easy, it only takes about 5 minutes and a small amount of money for the postage. Former prisoners frequently tell us how much letters from Christians around the world meant to them during their imprisonment.”  

The ministry’s website currently lists the information and addresses for 10 Christians currently imprisoned for their faith, in countries including China, North Korea, and Eritrea. The list is accessible at https://vomkorea.com/en/prisoner-profiles/.