Christian Post - John Kerry Calls for Iran to Release Pastor Saeed Abedini
By Stoyan Zaimov, ChristianPost.com
Secretary of State John Kerry urged Iran to release imprisoned US pastor Saeed Abedini and two other Americans detained in Iran in a new statement on Wednesday, calling on the men to be reunited with their families.
"On September 26, Mr. Abedini will have spent a year in detention in Iran. He was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges related to his religious beliefs," Kerry wrote, while also raising concerns for two other American citizens missing or held in Iran, Robert Levinson and Amir Hekmati.
Pastor Abedini has been in Evin Prison in Tehran ever since being arrested in 2012 while building an orphanage in Iran, and later sentenced to 8 years in prison, supposedly for endangering national security.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, and their two children, has argued that the sentence has more to do with the pastor's Christian faith. . . .