Iranian officials on Wednesday accused the State Department of issuing a "biased" report condemning the regime's restrictions on religious freedom.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the report as unrealistic, unfounded and biased which has been compiled only for specific political objectives," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Wednesday, according to the semi-official FARS media outlet.

Iranian officials buttressed that claim by noting that Judaism is "a recognized minority" in the country. But the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's team noted that Iran "promote[s] Holocaust denial," and, more broadly, restricts freedom of worship and bans religious minorities from trying to win converts in the Muslim community.

"Iran continues to sentence individuals to death under vague apostasy laws 20 individuals were executed in 2016 on charges that included, quote, waging war against God,'" Tillerson said Tuesday when releasing the report. "Members of the Baha'i community are in prison today simply for abiding by their beliefs."

The State Department's report on religious liberty under the Shia Muslim regime elaborated on that theme. "The government continued to harass, interrogate, and arrest Bahais, Christians, Sunni Muslims, and other religious minorities and regulated Christian religious practices closely to enforce the prohibition on proselytizing," the report said.

An American pastor with dual Iranian citizenship, for instance, was arrested and then beaten in prison on charges that his evangelization efforts "threatened the national security of Iran." He was released in the context of the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal and the Obama administration's agreement to release money that the regime claimed it had been owed in relation to a decades-old dispute over a blocked arms deal.

But the Iranians maintained that they respect religious freedom, while accusing President Trump of trying to curtail the liberties of American Muslims.

"The U.S. administration is expected to take legal and practical measures more rapidly to support the freedom of religion, specially regarding the Muslims' rights in the U.S., instead of judgment about the situation of freedom of religion in other countries," Qassemi said.

See the original post:

Iran: US religious freedom report 'unfounded and biased' - Washington Examiner