Fereshteh Dibaj and her husband Reza Montazemi, a Christian couple in Iran, were released from an Iranian jail last October after spending 10 days in detention.

The charges against them are still unclear, but it is likely to do with their religious affiliation. They belong to Iran's little-known Christian population, a minority that constitutes less than one percent of the country's 70 million inhabitants.

According to Amnesty, Reza's mother, who owns the house in which they live, was reportedly ordered to sign a document two days before the couple was arrested, promising that no more Christian meetings for worship, prayer or Bible study would be held there.

It should come as no surprise that Tehran's religious authorities are concerned about the Christian community.

According to Christian organizations, the country is witnessing a huge spate of conversions from Islam to Christianity. The trend began shortly after the Islamic revolution in 1979, increased during the Nineties and has continued since President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad came to power in the summer of 2005.

The number of Christians in Iran who hail from Muslim backgrounds is approximately 70,000, based on estimates of churches and individuals. There are no accurate figures of converts. Discretion is vital in order to avoid the wrath of the religious authorities.

Fereshteh Dibaj is the daughter of Reverend Mehdi Dibaj, a Christian convert who spent 10 years in prison on grounds of apostasy. He was murdered in 1994, shortly after his release from prison.

Fereshteh's husband Reza reportedly converted to Christianity in his youth.

Flouting government orders, the couple continues to lead an independent house church in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran.

Christians in Iran break down into several groups. The larger and older communities include the Armenians, who immigrated from Armenia and Turkey several centuries ago, and the Assyrians, who likely originated from Syria and Iraq.

Smaller and more recent congregations include quite large numbers of converts to Christianity.

Under the Islamic regime that came to power in 1979, there has never been total religious freedom for the Christian population in the country, says Wilfred Wong, a researcher with the Jubilee Campaign, a pressure group that lobbies to protect the persecuted church.

"The situation has fluctuated between bad and worse," he says. "At the moment it's worse."

All agree that Christians who bear the brunt of persecution in Iran are the evangelicals and converts from Muslim backgrounds.

"This is not to say that the traditional non-evangelical churches have complete freedom. That would be naïve," Wong says. "They also suffer varying degrees of difficulties."

Fereshteh's older brother Issa, who has lived for several years in the United Kingdom, says he never faced the problems that his father did, as he was born and raised a Christian.

"The reason my sister had problems was because of her active evangelism," he says.

Iran ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which preserves the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion in 1976, prior to the Islamic Revolution. But the current Islamic character of the regime is problematic, Issa says.

"Even if the constitution guarantees these freedoms, they aren't really recognized," he says.

So, with all the problems it entails, what is reportedly pushing Iranian Muslims to Christianity?

Ironically, many believe Iran's rigid regime is inadvertently driving this trend of conversions rather than preventing it.

The trend is partly due to the Muslim population's disenchantment with the regime and all it has to offer, Dibaj says.

"Up until the revolution, the clergy said if Iran became an Islamic state all the problems would be solved," he says.

"Now, 20 years or so after the revolution, people have seen the restrictions, they've seen the economic decline, people have seen the real face of Islam and they had an eight-year war with Iraq. They say to themselves: 'If this is Islam, we don't want to have any of it.'"

The impressionable nature of the Iranian population is also a determining factor, he believes.

"You have to recognize that Iran is a very young country. Nearly 70 percent of the country's population is under the age of 25. Most of the population had nothing to do with the start of the revolution and they have access to Christian television programs and websites. They're curious to find out more and they contact these outlets."

Iranian officials failed to respond to The Media Line's queries regarding the treatment of Christians in the country and the reported large wave of conversions to Christianity.

The Muslim world is not happy, to say the least, about Christian missionaries converting their believers. At the start of the war in Iraq, reports of Christian missionaries entering the country to win over Muslim hearts and souls reinforced perceptions of the West as crusaders.

But Christians say the converts are hardly influenced by Western missionaries, as these are barred from entering the country.

Even local evangelists are too few to be a key driving force behind the conversions, Wong says.

"In many cases it's a dream or a vision leading them to conversion," he says.

But the regime's way of handling this trend -- namely, by clamping down on the Christian population -- is not the right way to go about it, and is even unIslamic, says Dr. Muhammad Serag, a professor of Islamic studies at the American University in Cairo.

Traditionally, a Muslim man who turned his back on the religion would be executed and a woman would be imprisoned until she repented, he says. But this penalty is only applied if these people pose a threat to Muslim society, such as propagating their new religion, he explains.

However, this does not correspond with the Quranic verse, "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (Al-Baqara, verse 256).

The severe attitude toward converts was originally adopted for political reasons, in order to preserve the interests of the Muslim society, Serag says.

"In the past it could be appreciated, understood or justified, but not in modern times," he adds.

Conversion from Islam is still frowned upon in Muslim society and is a matter of concern.

"Conversions are associated always with Western influence or military interference in Muslim society," Serag says. "They may not feel easy about it, they may not be welcoming this attitude, but they do not take violent action against them and I think this should be the right attitude."

"I don't mind if they convert. It's their free choice," says Sami Zaatri, a young Muslim who has created a website called Muslim Responses to counteract Christian missionary arguments.

"What I do have a problem with are evangelicals," he says. "They call the Prophet Muhammad a terrorist and then they come to our countries and try to missionize."

Zaatri, an American of Iranian descent, says he is not necessarily trying to convert people to Islam, but urges Muslims to make their decision only after they have all the information.

"Some people have been lied to. If you read the missionary arguments, you see they are distorting the Arabic, taking things out of context and quoting weak sources. It preys on weak Muslims who don't know the sources."

Sofyan Abdelaziz, director of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), says that even if converts are deserving of punishment, the Islamic regime should not have the authority to mete out these penalties, as they do not represent Islam.

At the end of the day, the decision to punish someone is in the hands of an authority much higher than Tehran, he says.

"If somebody wants to convert, it's between them and God."

By Rachelle Kliger
The Media Line