Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini was sentenced to eight years in Iran’s most notorious prison Jan. 27 for allegedly threatening “national security” by planting house churches years ago.
The U.S. government and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued calls for the release of Abedini.
Abedini, an Iranian-born pastor, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. His supporters say he was in Iran last summer to finish building an orphanage when members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard hauled him away in a bus for prison, according to World Watch Monitor, a news service focusing on the persecuted church.
Abedini has suffered beatings while in prison and faced a trial before Revolutionary Court judge, Abbas Pir-Abbassi, labeled a human rights violator by the European Union and infamous for his harsh sentencing — including executions — of students who protested Iran’s 2009 elections.
“This is a real travesty — a mockery of justice,” said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Liberty and Justice (ACLJ), which represents Abedini’s wife and children in the United States. “From the very beginning, Iranian authorities have lied about all aspects of this case, even releasing rumors of his expected release.”
The verdict comes after a week of false promises of being granted bail and fear for his safety in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison. Iran’s official news agency reported that the state regime had told the pastor he could be released if he posted bail. When his family in Tehran attempted to free him, however, the bail officer turned them away, according to the ACLJ.
Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh Abedini, said, “This has been a repeated promise by the Iranian regime since Saeed was first thrown in prison on Sept. 26, 2012,” she told Fox News of the bail promise. “We have presented bail. After the judge told Saeed’s lawyer that bail was back on the table, the family in Tehran ran around in circles today to make sure Saeed was let out on bail. But again the bail officer rejected bail.”
She and their two children, a 6-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, reside in Idaho.
“With (the recent) development I am devastated for my husband and my family,” Nagmeh Abedini said. “We must now pursue every effort, turn every rock, and not stop until Saeed is safely on American soil.”
During the trial Saeed Abedini presented himself confidently before the judge, ACLJ International Legal Director Tiffany Barrans told Morning Star News.
“He was able to share from the Bible, explaining to the judge that he was motivated by his faith and had no political intention to undermine the Iranian government,” she said.
The defense strategy of Abedini’s defense attorney, Naser Sarbazi, a Muslim, was to portray his activities in Iran as faith-based and without any political agenda.
The verdict on Abedini comes amid a heavy crackdown on the Iranian church. In addition to various house-church arrests in recent months, pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was detained on Christmas Day, then released Jan. 7. He had been arrested in 2009 for “apostasy” even though a court found he had never practiced Islam in the first place. He faced the death penalty but was released in September following an international outcry.
According to World Watch Monitor, Saeed Abedini converted from Islam to Christianity in 2000 and helped start house churches in Iran. He had been arrested multiple times by authorities, but Barrans told World Watch Monitor that in 2009 the pastor made a deal with Iran’s intelligence police.
That deal allowed him to come back to Iran to build an orphanage in exchange for staying out of house church work, an agreement his supporters say he kept. But before his latest trip to Iran, the religiously controlled Revolutionary Guard took jurisdiction over Iran’s Christian community from the intelligence police, Barrans said, coinciding with a more aggressive campaign to drive Christianity out of Iran.
Before the verdict was given, the White House, the U.S. State Department, and 49 members of Congress called for his release as a U.S. citizen, fearing that the court was ready to hand Saeed Abedini a death sentence.
In a Jan. 25 press conference, White House Spokesman Jay Carney condemned Iran’s “continued violation of the universal right of freedom of religion, and we call on Iranian authorities to release Mr. Abedini.”
(BP, MS)
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