An update on this story. "Iran - Court finds way to acquit Christians of apostasy," from Compass Direct News, October 30:
LOS ANGELES, October 30 (Compass Direct News) – An Iranian judge has ordered the release of two pastors charged with “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, but the defendants said the ruling was based on the court’s false claim that they confessed to having never converted to Christianity.
Mahmoud Matin Azad, 52, said he and Arash Basirat, 44, never denied their Christian faith and believe the court statement resulted from the judge seeking a face-saving solution to avoid convicting them of apostasy, which soon could automatically carry the death penalty.
Azad and Basirat were arrested May 15 and acquitted on Sept. 25 by Branch 5 of the Fars Criminal Court in Shiraz, 600 kilometers (373 miles) south of Tehran.
A court document obtained by human rights organization Amnesty International stated, “Both had denied that they had converted to Christianity and said that they remain Muslim, and accordingly the court found no further evidence to the contrary.”
Azad vehemently denied the official court statement, saying the notion of him being a Muslim never even came up during the trial.
“The first question that they asked me was, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I am a pastor pastoring a house church in Iran,” he told Compass. “All my [court] papers are about Christianity – about my activity, about our church and everything.”
Members of Azad’s house church confirmed that the government’s court statement of his rejection of Christianity was false.
“His faith wasn’t a secret – he was a believer for a long, long time,” said a source who preferred to remain anonymous.
During one court hearing, Azad said, a prosecutor asked him, “Did you change your religion?” Azad responded, “I didn’t have religion for 43 years. Now I have religion, I have faith in God and I am following God.”
If the court misstated that the two men said they were Muslims, it likely came from political pressure from above, said Joseph Grieboski, founder of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.
“If the court did in fact lie about what he said, I would think it’s part of the larger political game that [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and his factions are trying to play to garner political support for him,” Grieboski said.
Ahmadinejad, who is facing re-election, has approval ratings hovering above the single digits and has faced international criticism for the apostasy law.
“What he does not need is bad press and bad political positioning,” Grieboski said. “I would be shocked if [the acquittal] were not somehow involved in the presidential campaign.”
International condemnation of the law and of the proposed mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam come as Iran faces new rounds of U.N. economic sanctions for uranium enrichment. ...
Just like the convoluted game of usury-by-other-means in Islamic lending practices...the intellectual gymnastics involved in explaining why consummating a marriage with a nine year old is not pedophilia...and why 'no compulsion in religion' in no way contradicts the killing of apostates...
...everything about this religion seems to be a flight from reality.
Who is polling Iranians on Ahmedinejad's approval ratings? That seems crazy to me, first that they do that, and second, that people are honest. I mean, they have elections, but at the end of the day it's a dictatorship. There's no real democracy. It's not like people have any influence on the law. It's Sharia. I would be afraid to be honest. I bet that it's 0% approval when you account for the dictator-Bradley effect.
I do love that, though. I have to wonder if most Iranians are willing to sacrifice their future to nuke Israel, since the nuclear program is where all their money has gone and it's going to get blown up just like Saddam's in 1983 (thank you, Israel!). I would imagine that they actually are and that they're just irritated that the infrastructure is still crumbling and that they don't have as much media access as they want. Judeophobia is so rampant in the Middle East, even if most Iranians aren't Muslims, which they aren't if you consider mosque attendance to be obligatory. Reza Safa and Ali Sina say that less than 10% of them go and they get paid to go and they get fed when they go there. That's still not enough of a reason, but Islam or no, it's a Shi'ite culture and Shi'ite Jew-hatred is unparalleled.
Whoa! My comment ended up before 2 comments that were there when I posted. Daylight savings time is kewl.
Note that the Christians would rather die, than be freed on the basis of a lie.
To quote a Byzantine critic of Islam:
What did Mohammad bring that was new to the world of religion except the evil of terrorism in the name of 'belief'?
Other faiths also crudely terrorized ...by misinterpreting their religions.
But Islam has it as a central dogma.
That is the difference which all of Islam's squalid, simplistic apologists, from George Bush on down, insanely fail to grasp.
Or they flee from its horror in existential and intellectual cowardice.
I like that, profitsbeard. When I go to church, we recite the Credo. I wonder if the Credo in Islam is: I believe that I am misinterpreting my religion.
Don't be at all surprised if these charges aren't revisited sometime after the election.
"...everything about this religion seems to be a flight from reality."
On second thought, there's nothing more real than killing. Islam is not a flight from reality, it is a flight from truth.
Finally, the U.N. economic sanctions accomplish some good.
"Ahmadinejad, who is facing re-election, has approval ratings hovering above the single digits and has faced international criticism for the apostasy law."
Wow. This sentence doesn't sound at all like the Dinner Jacket is facing re-election. Sounds more like he's facing being a bigger loser than he already is.
Y'all have to excuse me for being surprised by this, his lack of popularity. I don't get to read as much of JW as I used to.
jdamn,
Yepper--at the end of the day it's still a dictatorship.
Unfortunately, America is becoming like that, too. "W" voted himself and future Presidents a whole lot of power, which neatly circumvents the "checks and balances" of our government.
Scary, when the next Pres might be the Obamination.
dumbledoresarmy,
You're right--these are a couple of brave men. May God bless and keep them.
Does this mean that no matter what religion we belong to, this Iranian judge can rule that we are Muslims?
I don't think that I like that.