Despite fears of persecution, the asylum claims of Iranian Christians have consistently been refused by Georgian authorities, a new report released on Monday has found.

The claim, in a 24-page joint report by Article18, CSW, Open Doors and Middle East Concern, is based on interviews with the asylum-seekers and their lawyers.

The report found that nearly one-fifth of all asylum-seekers in Georgia are Iranian. Over the past three years, less than 1% of the more than 1,000 Iranians who have claimed asylum, the report said, have been accepted by Georgia’s immigration service.

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“The asylum-seekers therefore face an uncertain future, with little hope of being recognised as refugees but having few alternative options to access international protection,” the report said. “Several individuals whose asylum claims have been rejected in Georgia have already spent years as refugees in neighboring countries such as Turkey, and say they no longer know what to do, nor where to go.”

Iran is ruled by an Islam-based, theocratic constitution since 1979. Apostasy — specifically conversion from Islam — can be punished by death. In 2022, the country’s penal code specified the death penalty for proselytizing and any attempt by non-Muslims to convert Muslims.

The report made the following recommendations:

— Recognize the “diversity of Christian belief” when officials assess “the authenticity of a religious conversion.”

— Refer to the reports by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iran, for example, when “determining whether asylum claimants have a well-founded fear of persecution if they were to return.”

— Call on the international community to make “urgent representations to the Georgian authorities regarding the plight of Iranian Christian asylum seekers” and “initiate new safe and legal routes for Iranian Christians to be resettled.”

Increasing numbers of Iranians have settled in the former Soviet state in recent years. Iran’s poor economy and Tehran’s persecution of Christians are among the two biggest reasons. Iran and Georgia are located near one another, with only the tiny nation of Armenia separating them.

Sasan Rezaee, an asylum-seeker who had already spent nearly a decade in Turkey before moving to Georgia, said he was “so tired” of the process that he was contemplated returning to Iran and accepting “whatever punishment they may give me.”

Reasons for rejecting applications

The report notes a variety of reasons why asylum seekers have had their applications rejected. Among them, the report says, is “intolerance of expressions of Christianity other than Georgian Orthodox.” Georgia is 90 percent Orthodox Christian.

Most Iranian Christians are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. Other denominations — such as Catholics and evangelicals — are also represented.

The report said “there is a growing sense of hopelessness among Iranian Christian asylum seekers in Georgia, who feel increasingly doubtful about their chances of being granted refugee status, and equally uncertain about other options available to them.”

In the majority of cases, the report says, the claims are rejected on the basis that their faith is found not to be genuine. But in the case of two people featured in the report, Pastor Reza Fazeli and Amin Zangeneh Zad, their asylum claims were rejected even though their faith had been deemed genuine.

“Praise the Lord, I was the first person to be recognized that way!” Fazeli was quoted in the report. “But after that, they said: ‘You won’t have any problem in your country. You can go back.’”

Many said they were rejected and rejected by being given form letters in return.

Hadi Pourmohammadi, another rejected asylum-seeker, said, “It is like it is the same letter for all Iranian Christians. … They took my name [out] and put [my friend’s] name in.”

Georgia’s government has not publicly responded to the report.

The report will be presented at the next meeting of the U.K. FoRB Forum on Dec. 9 in London and this month’s meeting of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance.

Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.