(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.
