Wife Of Pastor Saeed Abedini Speaks Out About Prison Threats: 'I Fear For His Life'
The wife of imprisoned Pastor Saeed Abedini has spoken out regarding recent reports that her husband is being threatened in prison by Islamic State militants, saying: "I fear for his life."
Naghmeh Abedini, who resides in Boise, Idaho with her two children, said in a recent interview that her husband, who is imprisoned at the Rajai Shahr prison, told his mother recently that members of the Islamic State jihadist group are threatening to kill him because he is Christian. Abedini's mother had visited her son in Iran last week.
"He's already under threat because he is a convert to Christianity. Now we understand that ISIS members in the prison have said he is their number one target," Naghmeh told Reuters in a recent interview. "I fear for his life."
The American Center for Law and Justice, the legal group defending Naghmeh and her family, also released a statement earlier this week, confirming that Abedini was being harassed by the Islamic State inmates at the prison. It remains unclear if the Islamic State inmates are from Iraq or Iran.
The imprisoned pastor has reportedly been separated from the threatening inmates, but he still fears for his safety during the hour-long exercise period awarded to prisoners every day in the prison yard.
"This is an extremely dangerous development that puts Pastor Saeed's life at grave risk," Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, said in a press release. "Not only is Pastor Saeed facing threats from Iranian militants who have imprisoned him because of his Christian faith, he now faces new and perhaps even more dangerous threats from Iraqi ISIS prisoners who want to murder Pastor Saeed because of his faith."
Both Naghmeh and the ACLJ have called on President Barack Obama at the U.S. State Department to do more to free Abedini from his eight year sentence in Iranian prison. Abedini was convicted in 2013 for crimes against national security, but it is widely believed he was imprisoned for his Christian faith.
