December 12, 2014
Saeed Abedini has recently completed two years of his eight-year sentence for “undermining the national security of Iran because of Christian gatherings.”
His family remains in Boise, Idaho, where local television station KIFI talked with his wife, Naghmeh, to see how she and her two young children were coping.
Naghmeh said it was a late night phone call from Saeed’s mother in Iran that informed her the police had taken Saeed away.
“I felt really weak. I felt like I can’t even breathe, you know. I can’t believe this has happened. This is my life. I would look at my kids. They were sleeping. It was midnight and I thought, ‘What am I going to tell my kids?’”
Saeed was born and raised in Iran as a Muslim. He converted to Christianity in 2000 and joined an Iranian government-approved church. He soon moved to the United States and obtained citizenship. He was detained in Iran in the summer of 2012 after he returned there for a visit.
He remained under house arrest without a lawyer until the night before January 27, 2013, when he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Idaho Republican Senator James Risch recently said the number one thing the US is doing right now to get Saeed freed is the sanctions imposed on Iran. However, the US government has never linked the sanctions to Abedini or to the two other Americans detained in Iran, Amir Hekmati and Robert Levinson.
