[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 27



IRAN:

Christian pastor released by Iran vividly describes Tehran's executions of 
political prisoners


One of the Americans recently freed from an Iranian prison has described the 
experience of being held in the Islamic theocracy for years on charges of 
setting up churches.

Saeed Abedini, who was one of four Americans released in a prisoner swap with 
Iran earlier this month, talked to Fox News about how he was treated in prison 
and what he saw while he was there.

Abedini said he and other prisoners were beaten and threatened. But he said the 
worst thing he saw were the executions.

"Most of them are Sunnis, some of them are political prisoners, and I can say 
most of them are there for their faith," Abedini told Fox News' Greta van 
Susteren.

When soldiers came to take prisoners for execution, Abedini said, they'd "take 
their hands, their feet, grab them, like when they take a lamb for 
slaughtering."

"And they were yelling, some of them they were crying, and some of them they 
wet themselves, and so it was a very graphic things that I saw," Abedini said.

In July, Amnesty International released a report on Iran's "staggering" 
execution spree in which the country reportedly killed 694 people in six 
months. Amnesty referred to it as an "unprecedented spike" in executions.

Iran is also known to torture prisoners. Abedini described some of the brutal 
treatment to which he was subjected during his time in captivity.

"When I was interrogated with my interrogator, he told me that, 'I'm going to 
do 3 things to you,'" Abedini said.

The interrogator threatened to have other prisoners beat Abedini, told him that 
he would be sent to the worst prison in the country, and said they would be 
watching him if he ever returned to the US.

"They said, 'When you finish your sentence and you go to the US, we'll always 
follow you, and if you continue the things that you did, we're going to kill 
you,'" Abedini said.

Abedini was imprisoned in 2012 and is now back in the US recovering from the 
ordeal at a retreat on the East Coast, according to US News & World Report.

(source: Yahoo News)