(7 December 2010) The Supreme Court of Iran should immediately reverse the apostasy conviction and death sentence of Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani and release him from prison, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. The judiciary should also release another pastor, Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani, who faces a similar prosecution.
Nadarkhani, 32-year-old who became a Christian at age 19, is a member of the Church of Iran ministry and the pastor of an approximately 400-person congregation in the northern city of Rasht. Despite being sentenced to death for apostasy, no articles in Iranian legal code refer to such a crime.
“It is the low point of any judicial system to sentence a person to death outside of its own legal framework,” said Aaron Rhodes, a spokesperson for the Campaign.
“To execute someone based on the religion they choose to practice or not practice is the ultimate form of religious discrimination and disregard for the freedom of conscience and belief,” Rhodes added.
On 22 September 2010, the 11th Circuit Criminal Court of Appeals for the Gilan Province upheld the death sentence and conviction of Youcef Nadarkhani for apostasy.
Apostasy, the act of renouncing one’s religion, is not a crime under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code. Instead, the presiding judge in Nadarkhani’s case rested his opinion on texts by Iranian religious scholars.
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The Country framed after 'God' killing Holy Men
by Escape on Wed Dec 08, 2010 03:10 AM PSTIt comes down to the definition of this charge.
//www.answers.com/topic/apostasy Notice the page has a reference to Iran.................
Apostasy: Abandonment of one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.
How many way's can a person twist that one? Depending on who see's the definition,Apostasy could be stretched from not being Islamic to being a threat to Islam.
Yes Islam actually is signifigant.
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy
The death penalty is still applied by some Muslim states (such as Iran[2]), but not in Christianity or Judaism.[citation
Important note : The majority of commentor's here just as well could easily be charged with Apostasy in Iran.
I'm sure if they ran out of people to torture,you know,there's always the future of Iran................
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by yolanda on Tue Dec 07, 2010 08:58 PM PSTI hope their lives can be spared! Thank you for fighting for their lives!