Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to the Government of Iran on the cases of four Christians in that country who were due to have an appeal hearing in October 2017 on their sentence of 10 years imprisonment for involvement with the House Church movement.

We regularly raise human rights, including continued persecution of religious minorities with the Iranian government at all levels. I raised our concerns about the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities in Iran, including Christians, directly with my Iranian counterpart during my visit to Tehran on 5 August. We will continue to support the work done by the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran.