Germany Issues Deportation Order for Iranian Convert
The administrative office for foreigners of Central Franconia, Germany, has issued a deportation order for an Iranian convert. According to the media, the lawyer of has confirmed the conversion to Christianity of the Iranian asylum seeker. The lawyer also said that his client had been warned by his mother not to return to Iran because otherwise he would be arrested.
The deportation order has been confirmed by the convert's lawyer, Rainer Frisch. The Iranian, whose name should not appear in the newspaper for his own protection, has been living in Germany since 2015 and has converted to Christianity. This fact also seems to be known in Iran. The mother had therefore warned her son not to return because otherwise he would be arrested, the lawyer explained.
Conversion from Islam to Christianity is forbidden and punishable by death penalty in Iran.
In 2021, the Christian human rights charity Open Doors found in a representative survey, including data from 5,207 Christian converts seeking asylum in Germany, that baptismal or faith certificates from churches were only taken into account by the German asylum authority to a small extent: The 113 church communities, which took part in the survey, reported that in the period 2017-May 2021, 2,045 of the 5,207 converts they accompanied were rejected by the German asylum office and 1,400 were rejected by administrative courts despite submitting a certificate of faith. According to the same survey, 99 of the converts were deported in this period.
The charity furthermore criticised that objective criteria such as the persecution situation in the country of origin and the public dimension of the right to freedom of religion were not sufficiently taken into account by the asylum authorities.
Sources: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Open Doors Germany
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