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TEHRAN, IRAN (BosNewsLife)-- Iran has released a Dutch-Iranian pastor who was jailed for 359 days on charges of spreading Christianity among Farsi-speaking Iranians and relations with foreign organizations, well-informed Iranian Christians said Wednesday, August 31.

Vahik Abrahamian was detained last year in the western city of Hamadan by security officers some 337 kilometers (210 miles) outside the capital Tehran, said Mohabat News, an independent Iranian Christian news agency of Christian rights activists.

The agency said Abrahamian was released Monday, August 29 after hundreds of days "of custody and uncertainty in the prison of Hamadan."

It was not immediately clear what role, if any, Dutch authorities had played in his release.

INTERVENTION DIFFICULT

However the Dutch Foreign Ministry has said in other cases of alleged human rights abuses that diplomatic intervention is often difficult as Iran refuses to recognize double nationality of Iranians.

The pastor, who belongs to Iran's Armenian Christian community, has dual citizenship of Iran and the Netherlands but decided to stay in his native country "out of passion for Iran," Mohabat News said.

Pastor Vahik Abrahamian and his wife Sonia Keshish Avanessian were detained in September in their home town of Hamedan. Earlier in 2010 he spent two months in jail but was temporarily released on a 10,000 dollar bail... >>>