Islamic Republic of Iran: Convert from Islam to Christianity gets 80 lashes for drinking communion wine

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“Christian Convert Zaman Fadaei Receives 80 Lashes for Drinking Communion Wine,” Iran Human Rights Monitor, November 17, 2020 :

A month after an Iranian Christian convert was lashed for drinking communion wine, another convert, Zaman (Saheb) Fadaei, was lashed 80 times on Sunday for the same reason.

The sentence was carried out on Sunday, November 15, 2020, at Shahid Moghadas Court next to Evin Prison.

Zaman Fadaei has been serving six years in prison recently reduced from ten years followed by two years in internal exile for organizing house churches and promoting ‘Zionist’ Christianity”.

He was sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine. He has curently [sic] been serving his sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison….

Zaman Fadaei, along with Yousef Nadarkhani, Youhan Omidi, and two other members of “Church of Iran” were arrested in May 2016 and were tried in June 2017 on charges of “acting against the national security through propagating house churches and promoting Zionist Christianity,” for which the four men were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

An initial appeal in May 2018 upheld the sentences, but a further review took place in May 2020 reduced the sentences against Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani and Zaman Fadaie to six years.

Last month, the clerical regime lashed Iranian Christian convert Mohammad Reza Omidi 80 times for drinking communion wine….

Many Iranian Christians are in prison in Iran for practicing their faith. Heavy bail bonds and exile sentences are additional pressures that the Iranian regime imposes on Christians….

The Iranian regime criminalizes conversion to Christianity, and severely restricts the faith practiced by Armenian and Assyrian Christians.

 

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Zaman Fadaei could have been executed, as he is a convert from Islam, and the death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)

A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

 

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Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”