Where is the USGovenment in defense of Pastor Abedini?
I'm sharing with you the excerpts from an article by M. Zuhdi Jasser who is the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He is the author of " A Battle for the Soul of Islam". He makes a great case for the free expression of faith. He writes:
Recent news of the Jan. 21 Iranian trial of Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini before a Revolutionary Guard Court lit up social media and religious freedom activists and circles with sheer outrage over his plight and the rampant increase in Iran of persecution of religious minorities. But is religious liberty and these litmus cases a priority for the leader of the free world?
Pastor Abedini did nothing more than convert form Islam to Christianity 13 years ago and begin preaching his message in an underground network of churches in Iran. He then came to the US and became an American citizen raising his family in Idaho. His family reported that he returned last fall to Iran to start an orphanage and was snatched from a bus by the Iranian regime on Sept. 26. He was sent to the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran. The regime's bogus claim? He was undermining their authority and national security. Many of the claims from the Iranian State News Agency on this case and others have been proven false throughout. Yet there has been little public repudiation from President Obama.
The judge assigned to the case has been sanctioned many times by the European Union for his court actions and sentences. Pastor Saeed stands now convicted to 8 years in prison in an Iranian gulag.
With all the information known on this case, why the irresponsible neglect from the White House? The administration embarrassingly could only muster a statement from spokesman Tommy Vietor saying, "We remain troubled by the case of US citizen Saeed Abedini, who was arrested by Iranian officials more than 3 months ago on charges relating to religious beliefs; we call upon Iranian authorities to release him immediately."
One cannot help but realize that even though our nation was founded on the "first freedom" being religious freedom, the defense of that freedom abroad is sadly no longer "first". This seems especially true for this administration when the religious repression is found to be in the hands of Islamists - a theocratic form of fascism.
As a devout Muslim, relishing my American freedoms, I know that if the freedoms of Christians, Baha'is, Jews, Hindus, other Muslim sects or atheists are trampled upon, so too soon will mine. In countries like Iran, the defense of religious freedom is the most accurate barometer upon which we can hold their nations regularly accountable to the Universal Declartion of Human Rights. Yet, we run from the confrontation. Is the White House fearful of confronting Iran?
History has shown that when Islamists see the defenders of freedom withdraw from conflict with their supremacist goals, they push forward even harder against religious minorities.
Paul Marshall recently laid out how flagrant and rampant these cases have become with now too many to court - including Pastor Yusef Madarkani, Pastor Vruir Avanessian, Behzad Taalipasand, and Mohammed-Reza Omidi to name a few of the ever growing number of Iranians and Americans persecuted in Iran.
This administration has proven over and over again to be unwilling to take on Islamist ideologies and defend their victims on the front lines. Whether it be the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, or the Khomeinists of Iran, the Obama White House has dodged any diplomatic engagement that pushes directly up against a confrontation between western values of freedom and liberty and Islamist values of theocracy and the empowerment of the shar'iah of the Islamic state.
