[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15096-15097]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IRAN CAPTIVE

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I draw the Senate's attention to a 
troubling situation abroad. By now, many following the news have heard 
of the name Youcef Nadarkhani. Pastor Youcef is a Christian in Iran who 
has been sentenced to death for refusing to deny his faith. He was 
originally arrested in October 2009 while attempting to register his 
church. He allegedly questioned the Muslim monopoly on the religious 
instruction of children in the state.
  To Iran, his crime is his Christian faith and evangelism, and the 
punishment is death. For as many problems as we face in America, we are 
blessed that this is not one of them. The American Center for Law and 
Justice and other national groups have been diligently working on the 
case since it was first reported earlier this year. At any moment, 
Pastor Youcef could be executed without notice to his family or the 
public. I would like to take this time to add my name to the list of 
those calling for his immediate, unconditional release.
  This past weekend, Iran began to claim that Pastor Youcef's crimes 
were not of religion but of rape and threats to national security. 
These new allegations appear to be a new and unfounded attempt to 
justify his execution. None of these crimes were mentioned in his trial 
over the past 2 years.
  While ``religious freedom'' may be the law of the land in Iran, it is 
certainly not the practice. This audience is well aware of the 
persecution of religious minorities and Christians abroad. We should 
not forget the plight of religious minorities throughout this region, 
especially the Coptic Christians

[[Page 15097]]

in Egypt, Chaldo-Assyrian Christians in Iraq, the dwindling Christian 
population in the Holy Land, and other religious minorities in the 
Middle East.
  I believe we can and we must do more to advance religious freedom 
abroad. Earlier this year, in coordination with Congressman Frank Wolf 
in the House and my Senate colleague, Mr. Levin, I introduced the Near 
East and South Central Asia Religious Freedom Act. The bill creates a 
Special Envoy on religious freedom in the State Department to monitor 
the status of religious minorities in these particularly vulnerable 
regions. I am sincerely committed to this effort and believe that it is 
essential to promoting the God-given right to liberty around the world. 
I am hopeful that the Senate can soon join the House in passing this 
important legislation.
  I ask that other Members of the Senate join me in this call to save 
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani's life and condemn Iran's denial of the 
universal right to religious freedom.

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