October 14, 2016
Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini has filed papers for a divorce from his wife Naghmeh, saying he believes that is the only route “toward healing.”
Abedini was freed by Iran in January and his wife filed for legal separation as he returned home to Idaho.
In a Facebook posting to her 85,000 followers last Tuesday, Naghmeh said, “It is with a heavy and broken heart that I inform all of you who have prayed and wept with our family the last few years, that Saeed has rejected counseling for anger and abuse and has filed for a divorce. There will be a time to share more fully, but for now, we appreciate your prayers.”
The next day, Pastor Abedini confirmed the divorce action, saying he was “deeply saddened,” but believes the “only path toward healing is apart.”
“My heart is deeply saddened to be sharing the news that Naghmeh and I will be divorcing. She has been my wife of 12 years and she will always be the wonderful mother to our amazing children. While we have experienced struggles, she, along with my children, will forever be my heroes, both for what they had to deal with during my imprisonment in Iran and for how they never gave up fighting for my freedom,” he said.
“There are no words to describe the ongoing effect of the trauma I experienced and my family has experienced both during and in the aftermath of my imprisonment. We are different people, and we are hurting people, it pains me to say, but I have decided the only path toward healing is apart, and not together,” he said.
The pastor was arrested in mid-2012 while visiting Iran and spent three-and-a-half years in prison, apparently for helping Christian home churches in Iran.
Naghmeh made many public appearances lobbying for his freedom, including giving a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013.
But last November, just two months before Pastor Abedini was released, Naghmeh shocked her supporters when she announced she was suspending her public advocacy for her husband, citing psychological and sexual abuse in her marriage, among other reasons.
On the same day that Pastor Abedini returned home to Boise this year, court records cited by the Idaho Statesman said Naghmeh filed a domestic relations case against her husband as well as a petition for legal separation.
She sought a temporary restraining order concerning the couple’s two children and property owned by them.
“I love my husband, but as some might understand, there are times when love must stop enabling something that has become a growing cancer. We cannot go on the way it has been. I hope and pray our marriage can be healed,” she later wrote on Facebook.
The Idaho Statesman also reported that Pastor Abedini pleaded guilty to domestic battery following a July 2007 incident at the couple’s West Boise home and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, which was suspended. An incident report reveals that Pastor Abedini got into an argument with his wife and shoved her several times during the incident.
The pastor, who was 27 at the time, was speaking with family members via his laptop computer and Naghmeh, then 30, got upset at something he told them and tried to close the computer.
Naghmeh — who was holding her daughter, Rebekka, then 10 months old — told police, according to the Statesman, that her husband “pushed her several times” and forced her out of the room.
Officer Erik Tiner wrote, “He told me that he told her to get out of the room and made hand gestures indicating that he pushed her. I asked him if he pushed her and he denied doing so.”
Naghmeh told police that her husband threatened to beat her up if she did not leave the room. She also claimed that she had previously been the victim of domestic violence when the couple lived in Iran.
Earlier this year, according to the Statesman, Pastor Abedini was arrested on three misdemeanor counts of violation of the restraining order.
