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=> Betkolia involvement in church shutdown. Will you wake up?

Betkolia involvement in church shutdown. Will you wake up?
Posted by Ashur Ninveh (Guest) ashurninveh@sigaint.org - Sunday, December 27 2015, 8:46:58 (UTC)
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Website: http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09ISTANBUL370_a.html
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http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09ISTANBUL370_a.html

Subject: IRAN/RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: ASSYRIAN PENTACOSTAL CHURCHES
SHUT DOWN
From: Turkey Istanbul
To: Iran Iran Collective, Secretary of State
Original Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
Current Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
Previous Handling Restrictions: -- Not Assigned --
Archive Status: -- Not Assigned --
Political Affairs--Internal Security
Turkey
Office: -- N/A or Blank --
Document Character Count: 8659
Date: 2009 September 30, 13:16 (Wednesday)
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000370
C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (ADDING ADDL ADDRESSEE)
SUBJECT: IRAN/RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: ASSYRIAN PENTACOSTAL
CHURCHES SHUT DOWN
Classified By: ConGen Istanbul Deputy Principal Officer Win Dayton; Rea
son 1.5 (d)
1. (C) Summary: According to the pastor of the largest
Protestant Evangelical Church in Turkey (who also oversees
the global church's evangelical missions in the Middle East),
the Iranian Majles's Assyrian community representative,
Jonathan Betkolia, asked an Iranian court in March 2009 to
close the three Assyrian Pentecostal churches in Iran. The
Majles member told the Church leaders that the Assyrian
Pentecostal Church could only re-open if it agrees to bar
non-Assyrian Christians from attending services, but the
church refused and remains shuttered. Our contact visited
Iran in early September to discuss the issue with church
leaders. He returned to Turkey having concluded the closure
is at an impasse, as church leaders neither want to pursue
the case in Iranian courts, nor launch an international
media/NGO campaign to pressure the regime, nor can they agree
to the regime's conditions for re-opening. Comment: Our
contact was not optimistic about prospects for a near-term
re-opening of the churches, but would welcome USG advice on
whether there are other steps that the church could take that
might lead to a positive outcome. End summary.
2. (C) ConGen Istanbul's NEA Iran Watcher met September 24
with Ihsan Ozbek (please protect), the pastor of the Kurtulus
Protestant Church in Ankara, reportedly Turkey's largest
Protestant evangelical church. Ozbek also serves as Chairman
of the Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey and on the
board of the "Foursquare Evangelical Church", a worldwide
evangelical organization headquarters in California. Ozbek,
a Consulate contact on religious freedom issues, recently
returned from a visit to Iran in his capacity as the Middle
East coordinator for the Foursquare Missions' global
outreach. (According to Ozbek, the Assyrian Pentecostal
church in Iran is affiliated with the Foursquare Evangelical
Church.)
Assyrian Pentecostal Christian Churches in Iran Closed
------------------------------------
3. (C) Ozbek described the Assyrian Christian community in
Iran, a population estimated around 20,000, as diverse and
divided. The community is comprised of a number of
denominational churches that more often treat each other as
competitors and rivals rather than supporters or
co-religionists. The Assyrian religious community includes
the orthodox Assyrian Church of the East, as well as Assyrian
Anglican, Evangelical, Presbyterian, and Assemblies of God
churches. According to Ozbek, the Assyrian Pentecostal
Church has three to four thousand members in Iran, located in
three main locations: Tehran, Urmia, and Kermanshah. The
Tehran Church -- called the Shahrara Church -- is the
largest, with seven to eight hundred members.
4. (C) Ozbek told us that in mid-March, Majles member
Jonathan Betkolia (who holds the one Majles seat reserved
specifically for the Assyrian community's representative)
asked Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court to order the
Assyrian Pentecostal Churches to close. Accompanied by
several dozen police and Interior Ministry officials,
Betkolia delivered the closure notice in person to the
Shahrara Church's pastor, Victor Tamraz, seizing the keys to
the church and installing new locks on the doors. Interior
Ministry police also closed the churches in Urmia and
Kermanshah. The court's closure order asserted that the
churches were allowing non-Assyrians to attend services, and
that in the course of such services church pastors including
Tamraz were preaching to and converting Iranian Muslims.
According to Ozbek, the Shahrara Church had been offering
services in Farsi since 2000, in addition to its traditional
Aramaic-language services. Majles member Betkolia reportedly
told Tamraz that the courts will only allow the church to
resume operations if the church promises only to preach to
Assyrian Christians and agrees to bar other Iranians from
attending. Pastor Tamraz refused, and the three Pentecostal
churches have remained shuttered. Ozbek told us that
Pentecostal services since then have occurred in worshippers'
homes.
5. (C) Ozbek assessed that Betkolia's involvement in
directing the closure of the Assyrian Pentecostal Church may
have been motivated in part by a desire to keep the wider
Assyrian community as deferential as possible to the regime's
strict approach towards "recognized" religious minorities in
Iran. According to Ozbek, as long as a recognized Christian
church only preaches to believers from its own ethnic and
religious community, and forswears preaching to ethnic
Persians or anyone born a Muslim, the regime usually leaves
ISTANBUL 00000370 002 OF 002
that church alone.
"How can we re-open without abandoning our principles?"
--------------------------------------
6. (C) Ozbek traveled to Iran in early September at the
request of the Foursquare Evangelical Church headquarters in
California to discuss the issue with Tamraz and other
Assyrian Pentecostal Church officials. The Shahrara church,
with Ozbek and the Foursquare Ministry's support, continues
to take the position that it cannot agree to the Islamic
Revolutionary Court's demand that it bar non-Assyrian
Christians from attending its services. "How can we re-open
if we have to abandon our principles to do so?" Instead,
Ozbek suggested to Tamraz that the church challenge the
closure notice in the Iranian court system as falling beyond
the scope of the laws governing church operations.
(According to Ozbek, the laws do not explicitly require
Christian churches to actively bar individuals or specific
groups from attending services, though he acknowledged that
Iranian laws do explicitly prohibit proselytizing to and
converting Muslims, an act that can be punishable by death.)
Ozbek did not think the Assyrian Pentecostal Church would
pursue the case in Iranian courts, however, and concluded
that the issue was at an impasse.
7. (C) Ozbek solicited our advice, asking if the USG can
suggest any steps the church could take that might persuade
the regime to allow it to re-open, short of a church promise
to bar non-Assyrian Christians from attending services. He
said church leaders are not currently interested in
generating much attention with NGOs, because they fear that
an international media campaign on this specific issue would
put the church's future operations at even greater risk.
Instead, Ozbek speculated that a quiet diplomatic campaign
involving countries that enjoy some influence with Iran,
encouraging Iran to allow the re-opening of the church as a
confidence-building, humanitarian gesture, would have a
slightly higher -- though still small -- likelihood of
success.



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