Freedom for an Iranian Pastor
December 25 | Posted by mrossol | Iran, Religious PersecutionYes, Merry Christmas!
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WSJ – Dec. 23, 2015 6:49 p.m.
Iran’s ayatollahs are fond of timing and symbolism. So it’s no accident that the regime freed jailed Christian Pastor Farshid Fathi on Tuesday in time for Christmas. The news is welcome, but it doesn’t mean the mullahs are calling time-out on their war on dissidents.
Security forces arrested Pastor Fathi five years ago and held him for months in solitary confinement before convicting him on charges that included “evangelism” and possession of Persian-language Bibles, considered contraband in the Islamic Republic. Evangelical Christianity is exploding in Iran today, with conversion estimates ranging from 300,000 to half a million. Braving intense repression, new believers flock to online ministries and house churches such as the one founded by Pastor Fathi.
Meantime, thousands of innocent prisoners still languish in Iran’s jails. These include at least four American citizens: Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi.
President Obama has issued tepid statements of concern about such cases. Republican and Democratic presidential contenders could help the cause of the Americans by making it clear that they will do more to punish this kind of hostage taking.
Now that he’s free, Pastor Fathi will face pressure to leave the country. Yet forced exile won’t diminish the power of his spiritual example. “Although the beauty of Christmas . . . cannot be found in this prison,” he wrote in a letter to followers last December, “with the ears of faith I can hear the everlasting and beautiful truth that ‘the Virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call him Immanuel.’” Merry Christmas, Pastor Fathi.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/freedom-for-an-iranian-pastor-1450914594
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