A new report from the Evangelical Alliance has rallied behind asylum seekers being deported to their home countries by the Home Office despite a clear risk of being executed or handed life imprisonment sentences for their conversion to Christianity.
The Evangelical Alliance is pleading the case of one woman who is being deported home to Iran, despite fears she will be stoned for converting to Christianity.
The 29-year-old, known as Samar, converted to Christianity before leaving Iran, and says a death warrant for her has been issued in her homeland.
Her church in Bournemouth and MP Tobias Ellwood have campaigned on her behalf, but despite a temporary reprieve on Friday, immigration officers have again issued her with deportation papers to return to Iran on 18 July.
Gordon Brown also promised to look into Samar's deportation, after Tory MP Ann Widdecombe appealed to him to look into the case "with an urgent view to intervention" during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.
The report highlighting the plight of Christian asylum seekers was issued yesterday by the Evangelical Alliance, which represents more than 1 million Christians across the UK. It says that a lack of understanding of conversion, translation problems and ludicrous questioning by Home Office staff or the judiciary has led to asylum seekers being refused asylum from dangerous home countries.
One asylum seeker told the Alliance that Home Office interviewers asked her to prove her Christianity by describing how to cook a turkey for Christmas.
A key claim of the report is that inadequate country information leads to people being sent home because the country is wrongly seen as safe for converts.
In the case of Iran, the UNHCR has reported that conversion from Islam to another religion will lead to execution for a man or life imprisonment for a woman, but all appeals against Samar’s deportation there have been refused.
John Dallison, who travelled to Downing Street today to hand in a 1,000-name petition on behalf of Samar, said, “This is a key issue which only really came home to us when we encountered it personally with Samar. She is a committed Christian and I baptised her.
