When Faith Costs Everything: Iran, an Execution, and the Freedom to Publish

Written By Don Nori Jr.

A 25-year-old man married the woman he loved over a prison phone line. Hours later, the state hanged him.

I read that story this week and could not put it down. You shouldn't either.

What Happened in Isfahan

Alireza Sepahi was arrested after anti-government protests in Isfahan's Alikhani Square in January. He was sentenced to death. On October 5, he was hanged at dawn inside Isfahan Central Prison alongside a co-defendant, according to Fox News, citing The Times and Iran Human Rights.

His fiancée, Mahshad Keshani, is a 22-year-old student activist. She is serving a five-year sentence in the same prison. When the family was summoned and everyone knew what that meant, she asked to marry him anyway.

They exchanged vows by phone. Their fathers joined. A human rights lawyer read the vows aloud. Her family sent a simple dowry: a red rose, saffron candy, and a copy of the Quran. When the lawyer warned her the decision was permanent, her answer was three words: "I love Alireza."

The lawyer says even the prison guards wept. It changed nothing. Sepahi had already survived one walk to the gallows in July when he suffered a heart attack. They waited until he recovered. Then they finished the job. His family was reportedly barred from burying him in his hometown. Keshani remains in custody.

He was a protester, not a pastor. But Christians should read this story slowly. A regime that will do this to a young man for standing in a public square has already decided what it will do to anyone who stands for anything it does not control.

It Is Already Happening to Believers

Iran is not hiding its intentions toward the Church.

Open Doors ranks Iran 10th on its 2026 World Watch List of the most dangerous countries for Christians. Iran Alive Ministries, which supports underground house churches, told Baptist Press in August that at least 33 ministers in its network were killed in recent months and 131 others arrested. Those are the ministry's figures from its own network, and it says the real number is higher.

Here is the detail that stopped me as a publisher. As of July, Iran criminalized listening to religious broadcasts, according to several persecution watchdogs including Open Doors U.S. (Religion Unplugged / Baptist Press).

Not preaching. Listening.

That is how you know what a regime fears. It fears the message reaching the reader.

The Regime Is Not the People

One distinction matters here. The regime is not the people. Mahshad Keshani is Iranian. So are the converts filling house churches. The system that hanged Alireza Sepahi holds millions of Muslims hostage too. Christians are called to oppose that system without hating the people trapped inside it.

Faisal Malick knows that world from the inside. He was a devout Sunni Muslim before he came to faith in Christ. In The Destiny of Islam in the End Times: Understanding God's Heart for the Muslim People, one of our Destiny Image titles, he writes to help Christians understand how Muslims think and why they act as they do. His prophetic views are his own. His call to love the Muslim people is one every believer should hear.

A Reader Said It Better Than Most Columnists

Under the Fox News story, the top comment came from a reader whose family left Iran for America. I'm sharing part of it because it carries the weight of lived history:

"The Iranian Islamic regime has no moral compass. Anyone who doubts that should study what Iran was like before the 1979 Islamic Revolution."

The writer goes on to describe how leftist groups helped overthrow the Shah expecting a seat at the table, only to be silenced, imprisoned, or executed once Ayatollah Khomeini consolidated power. Women lost basic rights. Compulsory veiling was imposed. Freedoms were stripped away one by one.

Then this:

"History should serve as a warning... Freedom should never be sacrificed for political promises."

And the last line, the one that got me: "Thank you Jid for immigrating us to the USA."

That is a family that knows the price of the freedom most of us inherited for free.

The commenter is right about the history. The revolutionaries who thought they were co-owners of the new Iran became its first prisoners. Pre-1979 Iran was no paradise either. The Shah had his own secret police. But the lesson holds: when people trade freedom of conscience for a promise of power, the promise is broken and the freedom does not come back.

The commenter applies that warning to the radical wing of the American left. Partly right, partly too narrow, in my view. The danger is not one party. It is any movement, left or right, secular or religious, that decides conscience must yield to the cause. Iran's own revolution proves it. Leftist groups were a driving force behind it, organizing the strikes and street pressure that brought down the Shah. Khomeini used them to take power, then silenced, imprisoned, and executed them, all in the name of God.

That should sober every Christian who wants to win an argument by force instead of by persuasion.

What This Means for Christian Publishing

I run a publishing house. Here is what this story says to me.

  1. Words are not small. Regimes do not criminalize what they consider harmless. A book, a broadcast, a sermon on a phone is treated as a threat because it is one: a message can reach a person the state cannot reach.

  2. Free publishing is a stewardship, not an entitlement. We publish freely in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Believers in Iran are risking prison to listen. That gap is a responsibility. We owe readers books that go deeper, not books that merely fill a shelf.

  3. Persecution stories must be told accurately. No exaggeration. No borrowed tragedy for marketing. The persecuted Church deserves sourcing, names spelled right, and facts that hold up. That is how we honor them.

  4. Freedom erodes quietly before it collapses loudly. It starts with what may be said, then what may be printed, then what may be heard. Watch the first step.

  5. The answer is more voices, not fewer. The best defense of free speech is using it well: writing, publishing, and reading the messages God is raising up for this generation.

What You Can Do This Week

  1. Pray for Mahshad Keshani, who remains in custody, and for the families in the Alikhani Square case.

  2. Pray for believers in Iran's underground church by name where ministries make names public.

  3. Read one book this month that helps you see the people behind the headlines. I recommend Faisal Malick's The Destiny of Islam in the End Times, a Destiny Image title. Then give it away.

  4. Protect religious liberty where you live by persuasion, not intimidation. Defend the right of people you disagree with to speak. That right is the same one that protects you.

A young woman in a prison cell chose love when she knew how the story ended. The least we can do with our freedom is use it.

Sources

Don Nori Jr.

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