SW News: Two Iranian pastors are now facing additional charges of damaging state security after being released recently from custody, according to a UK-based organization. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani and another pastor from the Church of Iran denomination are facing charges of undermining state security after a couple from the denomination was pressured into incriminating them. Pastor Nadarkhani has been summoned to court on charges of undermining state security. Pastor Matthias Haghnejad, who is currently detained on charges for which he was acquitted in 2014 but which were reinstated, is facing the same charge.

Pastor Haghnejad, who lives in a distant area of Gilan, has never met the couple, while Nadarkhani, who spent years in prison, is familiar with them.

According to a CSW source, the couple claimed to have faced significant pressure from the political police before implicating the pastors. The source said, "The idea is to threaten to take the children away. This development highlights the determination of certain members within the political police to employ despicable methods in suppressing minority groups."

CSW is calling for "due process" to be observed and the pastors' charges to be dropped. Separately, the government has sentenced a well-known rapper to six years and three months in prison, claiming his involvement in the protests that shook the nation last year. The punishment was revealed on social media via a page established by Toomaj Salehi's supporters and by German parliamentarian Ye-One Rhie. However, there was no immediate response from the Iranian officials.

Salehi was one of the tens of thousands of young Iranians who took to the streets last autumn in response to the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, in the custody of morality police after she was detained for allegedly breaking the nation's stringent Islamic dress code. The nationwide demonstrations rapidly turned into demands to remove Iran's clerical leadership.

The 33-year-old rapper, detained in October of last year, expressed his disapproval of the Iranian government through songs and music videos that were widely shared online.