ISTANBUL, Turkey, May 27, 2002 — An Iranian family who converted to Christianity from Islam, then fled to Turkey to escape religious persecution in their homeland, are facing deportation back home.
The Canadian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey turned down the family's immigration application late last month, shutting the door on their last known option for religious asylum.
Mahmoud and Atefeh Erfani converted and were baptized 21 years ago. They lived with their three daughters in Mashhad, a known centre of Shiite fanaticism, and a place where Muslims who convert to Christianity can be executed for apostasy.
Pastor executed, Churches forced to close, Christians flee
Erfani and his wife witnessed deepening hostility and harassment from authorities during their last years in Iran, which frightened them into fleeing the country. Mashhad authorities executed a convert Christian pastor for apostasy in 1990. Then the city's two Protestant churches were forced to close, and three convert Christian couples were arrested, threatened and formally charged with apostasy. All three families managed to escape from Iran and obtain religious asylum in Europe and North America. Erfani's own pastor (another convert from Islam) was also granted religious asylum in Europe.
Erfani himself was subjected to a series of terrifying abductions by local secret police during the last half of 1998. After his family was forcibly evicted from their home in March 1999, he moved them to Tehran.
But a few weeks later, Erfani learned fellow believers in Mashhad were being arrested and questioned about his own whereabouts, so he secretly packed up his family and fled across the Turkish border, where they have remained as refugees since.
The Canadian government's refusal came nine months after its embassy in Turkey pledged in writing to examine the family's application for immigration. The August 6 document had specified that the family could be processed to leave for Canada within eight months "if all our requirements are met." At that point, three previous applications filed for U.N. refugee status had all been denied.
Erfani was summoned to Ankara for a formal immigration interview with Canadian authorities, April 18. The interview lasted one hour. Five days later, the Canadian Embassy issued a letter declaring that based on "a careful consideration" of his April 18 interview, Erfani did "not satisfy the definition of Convention refugee nor member of the country of asylum class."
According to definitions cited in the refusal letter, a "Convention refugee" is any person who "by reason of well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion" has left his country and "by reason of that fear, is unwilling to return to that country."
Anglican Church was ready to sponsor
The letter gave no specific reason for the refusal. Church sources in Canada, however, said they believed Mrs. Erfani's health problems were most likely the determining factor.Mrs. Erfani suffers from advancing multiple sclerosis.
The family's Turkish residence permits expired on March 28.
"I have nothing in my hands now," Erfani said. "I am afraid that we could be sent back to Iran," he admitted.
According to a representative of an Anglican church in Toronto which pledged full sponsorship for the stranded family, the Erfani family's case is now closed with Canadian immigration. Even "if there is new evidence presented," the representative told Compass, "there is no way to reopen the case."
Source: Bible Network News, with files from Compass
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