Found this great question an answer with the founder of Farsi Christian News Network. You can read the whole thing here.

An interview with Saman kamvar, managing director of Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN) and Christian representative member of the Iranian Human rights activist committee.

In recent years the Islamic Republic of Iran has systematically and often through violent, repressive, and anti human rights methods treated the Christian resident of Iran, especially those who have newly embraced the Christian faith and are Farsi speaking.

Meanwhile, in view of the fact that Iran is named among the top three countries in the world accused of violating the human rights of its Christian population, the reactionary sensitivity of the government has increased in recent years. In the context of the recently committed acts of repression and persecution towards the Christians of Iran, discriminatory laws, systematic violation of human rights, and the recently proposed and approved by penal code by the Islamic Parliament, an interview was conducted with Saman Kamvar, who is the executive member of the Christians represented in the federation of human right activists.

1- There has been news of systematic repression of Christian citizens of Iran. When did these repressive activities begin?

First and foremost, I would like to thank you for the opportunity given to me, and I would like to, by the way of a brief introduction, tell you about the history of church in general, which is not so unrelated to your original question. From the outset and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ, during the time of the disciples, until now, the true church through all the past centuries has been the subject of systematic persecution in the hands of the government of the time. In the early church, Christians were persecuted and murdered by the Roman Empire and countless Christians because of their faith in Jesus Christ were fed to lions and thus were made a spectacle and future deterrent for others in order to stop the rapid growth Christianity.

But, what was the result of all these persecutions? We see that the effect was actually the opposite and not only did it not stop the growth of the Church, but it helped change the course of history. Today, we divide our calendar on the basis of the birth of Christ. The Gospels declared this reality that as long as Christians are in this world there will be persecutions directed toward them.

Therefore, with this brief introduction, I would like to explain that after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979, and the form of government becoming a theocratic in nature, the church in Iran continued its divine mandate of evangelism and outreach to all Iranians until a few years later, the evangelical churches of Iran were targeted by the government and great repressive pressures were placed on the believers. In this context, the security intelligence apparatus of the Islamic Republic began assassinating several outstanding and well known leaders of the Church in Iran in a systematic fashion.

Evangelical Christians of Iran have given many martyrs to the cause of the Lord and the most outstanding example of such martyrdom is the arrest, conviction, and the execution of Martyr Rev. Soodmand in December of 1990 by the judiciary court of the Islamic Republic, which was carried out in the city of Mashhad, and his body buried in a shameful way in a abandoned ruin in the outskirts of the city.