IRAN (ANS) -- According to a story by the Iranian Mohabat Christian News Agency, harsh sentences are being handed down for converts with an Islamic background.

This, Mohabat News said, is the main reason these converts flee their homeland and apply to the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for refugee status. However, Mohabat News commented, it seems that UNHCR decision makers do not understand the seriousness of this issue.

Mohabat News said before the Islamic revolution all religious minorities, including Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, could confidently speak about their faith.

However, Mohabat News said, that would change. After the Islamic revolution and installation of the Islamic regime, while freedom of religion, it wasn’t happening. Mohabat News said the regime broke its own constitution, created an atmosphere of terror and put increasing pressure on churches through its security organizations.

Mohabat News said people with different beliefs, especially Christians, were arrested, imprisonened, threatened and tortured. The executions of Iranian Christians and pastors is a prime example of that, Mohabat News said. The laws are even being tightened more and more as time goes on.

Such pressures and threats, as well as heavy sentences, cause Christian converts with an Islamic background to flee their homeland and seek refuge through the UNHCR office in Ankara. However, Mohabat News said, interviewers and decision makers at the UNHCR fail to understand the critical nature of the situation, and often turn down their asylum appeals.

Yousef Fallah Ranjbar is one of these asylum seekers who is currently awaiting a decision on his case in Turkey. Like other asylum seekers in Turkey, Mohabat News said, Fallah Ranjbar had to work in order to survive. However he was brutally assaulted by his Turkish employer with hot water and his body was severely burned.

Mohabat News said in a communication with the Association in Support of Iranian Asylum Seekers in Turkey, Ranjbar explained some of his sad story.

Leaving Iran

Mohabat News said Ranjbar stated he left Iran legally in Dec. 2008 due to problems he faced because of his Christian faith. He waited four months after his application to the UNHCR was registered. His case was reviewed during this period. After this four month period, Mohabat News said, he received an appointment date for his first interview. Then he waited another full year without receiving any response from the UNHCR. After that year he was informed that his statements during the interview were not acceptable.

Mohabat News reported Ranjbar said, “I went to the Helsinki organization (a consultant organization) and submitted an appeal. After a long delay, I went to the UNHCR again for my second interview. There I found out that the same interviewer who had conducted my first interview and knew nothing about Christianity, had been appointed again for my renewal interview.”

Mohabat News said Ranjbar explained that because the interviewer had mocked his faith during the first interview, he refused to proceed with the renewal interview when he realized that the interviewer was the same person. This refusal cost him another long wait until his case was closed by the UNHCR in early 2011, and he was deprived of another chance to prove his claims.

Mohabat News said Ranjbar continued, “I had to continuously work 14 hours per day for a maximum of 20 Turkish Liras in the worst conditions i.e. cold winters and hot summers. I am a barber, and my hands were not prepared for such hard labor. However, I had to work as a laborer in buildings moving 50 KG bags of cement ... and work in restaurants, etc.”

Burned by Turkish Employer

The extreme religious views of his Turkish employer resulted in Ranjbar's rights being violated. After Ranjbar asked for his pay several times, his employer told him he had no rights and that he would not pay him any money.

Mohabat News reported that Ranjbar said, “Then the employer and several other workers attacked and beat me before spilling hot water all over my body.”

After Ranjbar was burned, Mohabat News said, he went directly to the police station to file a complaint in hopes that the guilty party would be convicted. However, the trial was postponed to another time because the employer didn't appear for the hearing. After months of waiting the case is still pending.

Ranjbar is just one example of hundreds of Iranian Christian asylum seekers who are living in such situations in Turkey.

Mohabat News commented that unfortunately, the lack of adequate knowledge by some UNHCR officials regarding the seriousness of such situations, especially in religious cases (as well as the unresponsiveness of related organizations regarding the special situation of Christian converts in a country like Turkey), are just some of the problems that asylums seekers are suffering from.

Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "Homeless in the City." Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available at http://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net.