Unexpected encounter
Emily Belz, Worldmag.com
NEW YORK—Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived at the United Nations Monday projecting the face of a reforming Iran after his government released 80 opposition prisoners. The newly elected president said he would “take the opportunity to present the true face of Iran as a cultured and peace-loving country,” and he may even meet with President Barack Obama.
When Rouhani arrived at his New York hotel across the street from the UN, where the General Assembly begins this week, he crossed paths with the wife of a prisoner his country has not released: American-Iranian Pastor Saeed Abedini.
Abedini has now been held in Evin Prison for almost a year, arrested as a threat to national security while he worked at an orphanage in Iran. His lawyers in the United States say he was jailed for his faith, and that he has been tortured and beaten in the year since. The government sentenced Abedini to eight years in prison...