{"id":8457,"date":"2013-01-18T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?p=8457"},"modified":"2017-02-08T22:14:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T05:14:03","slug":"us-citizen-imprisoned-in-iran-for-his-christian-faith-could-face-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2013\/01\/us-citizen-imprisoned-in-iran-for-his-christian-faith-could-face-execution\/","title":{"rendered":"US Citizen Imprisoned in Iran for His Christian Faith Could Face Execution"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><blockquote><p><figure id=\"attachment_8458\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8458\" style=\"width: 340px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/254\/2013\/01\/Imprisoned_pastor_Saeed_Abedin_with_his_family_Credit_American_Center_for_Law_and_Justice_CNA_World_Catholic_News_1_16_13.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/254\/2013\/01\/Imprisoned_pastor_Saeed_Abedin_with_his_family_Credit_American_Center_for_Law_and_Justice_CNA_World_Catholic_News_1_16_13.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Imprisoned_pastor_Saeed_Abedin_with_his_family_Credit_American_Center_for_Law_and_Justice_CNA_World_Catholic_News_1_16_13\" width=\"340\" height=\"269\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8458\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8458\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Imprisonned pastor Saeed Abedin with his family.Credit: American Center for Law and Justice.<\/figcaption><\/figure><br>\n<strong>US asked to intervene for Christian citizen jailed in Iran<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Washington D.C., Jan 16, 2013 \/ 04:55 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- A U.S. citizen imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith could face execution if the government is not pressured to release him, warned an international religious freedom advocacy group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs more individuals and governments around the world take notice of Pastor Saeed\u2019s case, the pressure on Iran to release him and stop violating religious liberty will increase,\u201d said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the Washington, D.C. \u2013 based American Center for Law and Justice.<\/p>\n<p>In a Jan. 14 post on the law center\u2019s website, Sekulow explained that immediate action is essential \u201cas the Iranian regime is clearly bent on rushing through a sham trial that leaves counsel unprepared and in the dark about the nature of the charges against their client.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pastor Saeed Abedini, 32, is a U.S. citizen who initially invoked the anger of the Iranian government by helping start house churches after converting from Islam to Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>However, the two parties arrived at an agreement in 2009 allowing the pastor to travel freely in the country if he stopped working with the underground churches. He instead turned his focus toward humanitarian efforts with non-religious orphanages.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, the pastor was arrested in September during a trip to work with those orphanages and visit family, the American Center for Law and Justice said, and he has been imprisoned illegally for more than three months.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Sekulow warned, Abedini is scheduled to go on trial before one of Iran\u2019s most notorious \u201changing judges.\u201d (Read more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/us-asked-to-intervene-for-christian-citizen-jailed-in-iran\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29&amp;utm_term=daily+news\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US asked to intervene for Christian citizen jailed in Iran Washington D.C., Jan 16, 2013 \/ 04:55 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- A U.S. citizen imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith could face execution if the government is not pressured to release him, warned an international religious freedom advocacy group. \u201cAs more individuals and governments around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,134,43,726,41,1304,1],"tags":[523,2227,2228,2229],"class_list":["post-8457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-persecution-2","category-christianity-2","category-clergy","category-faith","category-following-christ","category-politics","category-religious-freedom-2","category-uncategorized","tag-christian-persecution","tag-christian-persecution-in-iran","tag-islamic-persecution-of-christian","tag-pastor-saeed-abedini"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin 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