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UPDATE: Pastor and Wife Escape Iran, Avoiding Prison Sentences

The couple’s son, Ramiel Bet-Tamraz, has already served time in prison this year. He was arrested in 2016 on charges of “acting against national security” and “organising and creating house churches.” He served nearly all of a four-month sentence in Evin Prison, but was released early on Feb. 27, 2020, because of a COVID-19 outbreak. The couple’s daughter, Dabrina Bet-Tamraz, has found asylum outside the country and is advocating for her family’s freedom

Dabrina told Christianity Today, “Raising awareness always helps. When the U.S. and international bodies speak out and address persecuted Christians, they have an enormous amount of influence.”

Open Doors puts Iran in ninth place on its most recent World Watch List, which ranks the top 50 countries in the world according to the severity of their persecution of Christians. Tehran’s Evin Prison has been called a “torture factory” and is notorious for its human rights abuses. International Christian Concern says that Christians in Iran who have served time there “report a routine denial of medical care, intense interrogations, and inhumane living conditions. More generally, inmates incarcerated at Evin Prison are subjected to the regime’s most brutal treatment, including assault, electric shock, and medical abuse.”