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News & Reporting

October 28, 2020

The following article is located at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2013/march/critics-state-department-is-awol-on-abedini-iran-religious.html

News & Reporting, March 2013

Gleanings

Critics: State Department Is ‘AWOL’ on Abedini, Iran Religious Freedom

(Updated) Wife of imprisoned Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini testifies before human rights commission.

Adelle M. Banks - RNS | posted March 19, 2013

Update (Mar. 25): Secretary of State John Kerry has released a statement calling for the immediate release of imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini.

Kerry stated:

I am deeply concerned about the fate of U.S citizen Saeed Abedini, who has been detained for nearly six months and was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on charges related to his religious beliefs. I am disturbed by reports that Mr. Abedini has suffered physical and psychological abuse in prison, and that his condition has become increasingly dire. Such mistreatment violates international norms as well as Iran's own laws. ... The best outcome for Mr. Abedini is that he be immediately released.

The State Department released Kerry's statement on the same day as the American Center for Law and Justice released a letter from Abedini, Baptist Press reports.

RNS offers more details.

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WASHINGTON (RNS) Religious freedom activists scolded the U.S. State Department for not appearing at a hearing Friday (March 15) on Iran's treatment of religious minorities, and called for greater government action to secure the release of people imprisoned there for their faith.

"The State Department is AWOL – they are absent without leave," complained Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a conservative law firm that represents the wife of Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-American minister in Tehran's Evin prison.

"They act as if they are embarrassed about Mr. Abedini's faith."

In comparison, he said, members of the European Union have called at the United Nations for Abedini's release.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which held the hearing on Capitol Hill, criticized the State Department for "such a deafening and almost cowardly silence" about the case.

Evan Owen, a press officer with the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said department officials who focus on Iran had "scheduling conflicts" on Friday, but Suzan Johnson Cook, ...

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