September 27-2013
The wife of an imprisoned Iranian-American pastor says her husband has been converting fellow inmates in Tehran’s Evin prison to Christianity so his time in jail is “not in vain.”
Naghmeh Abedini, wife of Pastor Saeed Abedini, spoke last Monday at Liberty University, an evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Christian Post reported that she said imprisonment has not limited her husband’s efforts at evangelizing.
“He’s been asked and tortured to deny his Christian faith and return to Islam—and he has not,” said Mrs. Abedini. She said around 30 inmates have converted to Christianity due to her husband’s efforts. “For me to know that so many of them now know Christ, it makes it worth it. I know his imprisonment is not in vain.”
The Islamic Republic is widely believed to have arrested Abedini for trying to convert Muslims, but it hasn’t said anything about any evangelizing either inside or outside Evin.
His wife told the students that Saeed’s torturers have often told him he could go free should he return to Islam, but that he refuses to do so. ”The kids and I desperately want him back, but we’re proud that over us he’s chosen Christ, even over coming back to us, he’s chosen to stand up for his faith,” she said.
Pastor Abedini was arrested in the summer 2012 while working on an orphanage in Rasht. He was later sentenced to eight years in prison, under the charge of “endangering national security.”
An Amnesty International statement in June reported that Abedini’s imprisonment appeared to be part of a larger crackdown on dissidents by authorities.
Meanwhile, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a conservative Christian law group that represents Abe-dini’s wife and children in the United States, has launched a website at BeHeardProject.com to support Pastor Saeed
Visitors to the site may add their names to a petition the ACLJ says now bears the names of more than 620,000 people calling for the release of Pastor Saeed.
Abedini will mark the first anniversary of his imprisonment next Thursday, September 26.
Abedini recently wrote to President Rohani describing abuse and internal bleeding he says he has endured as a result of his year-long imprisonment. He called on the president to follow through on his promise of moderation and urged him to exhibit compassion and justice so he can return to his family in the United States.
In his letter, Abedini told Rohani none of his work in Iran was political or threatened national security in any way.
“Mr. President, I, like you, believe in moderation and, as a spiritual man, have no interest in politics and did not seek actions against national security, propaganda or political groups. My purpose in all my attempts in my hometown was to reduce pain and suffering as well as compassion for the poor, orphans and unaccompanied children in accordance with religious rules and the sole intention of pleasing my Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Last month, an Iranian court rejected Abedini’s appeal, leaving his eight-year prison sentence in place.