{"id":4642,"date":"2011-10-10T11:30:42","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4642"},"modified":"2011-10-10T11:30:42","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:30:42","slug":"shining-the-light-on-oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=4642","title":{"rendered":"Shining the Light on Oppression"},"content":{"rendered":"

As they say, sometime light is the best disinfectant. The Iranian pastor who wouldn’t renounce Christianity and was being sentence to death has has his case moved to the top<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The case of an Iranian pastor facing a possible death sentence for apostasy has reportedly been referred to Iran’s supreme leader, a move some say shows the Islamic republic is feeling pressure in the face of growing international support.<\/p>\n

Attorney Mohammad Ali Dadkhah told AFP on Monday that an Iranian court has decided to seek the opinion of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the Islamic republic’s spiritual leader and highest authority — in the case of Youcef Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old pastor who was arrested in October 2009 and later sentenced to death for converting to Christianity.<\/p>\n

Messages seeking comment from Dadkhah were not immediately returned early Monday.<\/p>\n

Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based organization that is monitoring Nadarkhani’s case, told FoxNews.com that the move was unusual and is part of the "secretive process" within the Iranian judicial system.<\/p>\n

"Based on these reports, Pastor Youcef is alive and we have reached the highest level of Iranian government," Sekulow said on Monday. "I don’t believe this would’ve ever reached the level of Khamenei without the media attention and outpouring of support we’ve seen."<\/p>\n

Sekulow said the move to involve Khamenei in a case before a regional court is uncommon and indicates that "Iran is feeling the pressure" of the growing international community in support of Nadarkhani.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pray that he will be spared, and that the world will see this for what it is; Christian persecution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As they say, sometime light is the best disinfectant. The Iranian pastor who wouldn’t renounce Christianity and was being sentence to death has has his case moved to the top. The case of an Iranian pastor facing a possible death sentence for apostasy has reportedly been referred to Iran’s supreme leader, a move some say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,9,50,52,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-doug","category-iran","category-middle-east","category-religion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}