Hundreds of Christian converts in Iran seek asylum in Turkey to avoid persecution

About 500 Iranians who secretly converted to Christianity from Islam have sought asylum in Turkey to avoid persecution by the authorities, according to a report from a Kurdish news website.

Rudaw was able to interview some Kurdish Christians in Turkey's Van, close to the Iranian border, but no one wanted to reveal their names, while others chose not to appear on camera for fear of reprisals.

A young man who converted to Christianity after arriving in Van said he did not think he could be the person he wanted to be if he remained Muslim, adding that he now feels "comfortable" as a Christian.

Another man claimed that hundreds of Kurdish youth in Iran have abandoned Islam and embraced Christianity. He lamented that Kurds are being punished with the death penalty in Iran though many of them share the same religion.

"I changed my religion because I did not see anything in Islam. Whatever I saw was wrong," he told Rudaw.

"It is a fact that the government of Iran is an Islamic one, yet our youth, are getting executed. In Iraq [it's] the same. There is ISIS and [they] are killing people in the name of Islam, and there are vulnerable people who are being beheaded there. They have fled to Turkey, and we came to Turkey. That is why I did not see any good from Islam," he continued.

An Iranian man who converted to Christianity along with his wife and children said that there is no accurate figure on how many people have become Christians in Iran because they practice their faith in secret.

"When a Muslim converts to Christianity, they do so in secret. Rituals are secret since they are in danger...ours was secret, too," he said.

According to persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA, Christian converts in Iran experience persecution because the government considers Christianity to be a "western influence." Although historical Christians in Iran are protected by law, they are treated as "second-class citizens."

Ramzi Garmou, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Tehran, said in December that Christians are grateful that they live in peace in Iran as opposed to the rest of the Middle East.

"Thanks to God, we really live in peace and security, but our neighbors live in anguish and violence," he said.

The Iranian government has reportedly been spending millions of dollars on its crackdown on Christian converts and house churches across the country. But despite the government's efforts, Christianity in Iran grew at an "exponential rate" in the last couple of decades, with mission group Elam Ministries estimating that there are as many as 360,000 in the country, a significant increase from only 500 in 1979.

Out of 1,500 Kurdish asylum seekers in Van, 500 of them have converted to Christianity. The majority of the asylum seekers want to go to the U.S. or Canada, while others are hoping to go to Europe.