E/CN.4/1996/95/Add.2 page 19 81. The authorities that acknowledged the severe traumatism caused by the murders of the Protestant pastors expressed regret and referred to the measures that had been taken to protect Christian ministers of religion. They drew attention to the investigation that had been undertaken concerning those murders and to the subsequent arrest and trial of the persons responsible, who had been sentenced to terms of imprisonment. They emphasized the responsibility of the Mojahedin organization, inter alia, for the assassination of pastors and for the bomb attack on the Mashhad mosque. They regarded those acts as a carefully planned conspiracy against the Iranian State and an attempt to stir up discord and antagonism between the ethnic and religious communities. 82. The Minister for Foreign Affairs emphasized the fact that, in the absence of proof, the international community should not hold Iran responsible and, in particular, should not condemn it, for those murders. He expressed astonishment at the extent of the international reaction to the murders of the three pastors in contrast to the attitude adopted towards the far more numerous murders of Muslim religious dignitaries after the Revolution. 83. Some members of non-governmental bodies thought that the Iranian State, acting through various groups or persons, had ordered the murders of the Protestant pastors. They pointed out that Rev. Dibaj had been imprisoned since 1986; that an Islamic revolutionary court at Sari had sentenced him to death on 21 December 1993 for apostasy following his conversion to Christianity long ago in 1949; that the court had allowed a period of 20 days’ grace for an appeal against its decision; and that Rev. Dibaj had been released under pressure from the international community that had been alerted by Rev. Hovsepian, on 13 January 1994, even though the accusations against him had not been withdrawn. Concerning Rev. Hovsepian, it was pointed out that he was abducted six days after the release of Rev. Dibaj and that he had publicly expressed his opposition to the death penalty to which the latter had been sentenced. Rev. Michaelian had subsequently assumed the presidency ad interim of the Council of Protestant Churches of Iran, which was the body responsible for a community consisting partly of Muslim converts whose number was increasing. 84. According to the information received, the Iranian Government had apparently decided to execute those Protestant leaders in order not only to bring the Mojahedin organization into disrepute abroad by declaring it responsible for those crimes, but also, at the domestic level, partly to decapitate the Protestant community and force it to discontinue the conversion of Muslims, which was regarded as apostasy and was therefore prohibited according to the Government’s interpretation of Islam. It was apparently felt that those conversions weakened Islam and, hence, the Islamic Republic of Iran; that would explain the restrictions imposed in the religious field, as well as the executions of the leaders of the Protestant community. In particular, pastor Dibaj and his colleagues had apparently been executed in order not to encourage the Protestant community, through the release of pastor Dibaj, to continue its conversion activities. 85. Members of non-governmental bodies also regarded the trial of the three women accused of the murders as a travesty of justice and indicated that those women had repentantly dissociated themselves from the Mojahedin organization;