[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15827]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE PLIGHT OF SAEED ABEDINI

  (Mr. FITZPATRICK asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring awareness to the 
plight of Iranian American Saeed Abedini, a 34-year-old Christian 
pastor who was unlawfully arrested by the Islamic Republic of Iran for 
refusing to renounce his Christian faith.
  Saeed, along with his wife, Naghmeh, are prominent in the house 
church movement throughout Iran, credited with establishing around 100 
churches in 30 different Iranian cities.
  After the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, the church 
movement became the subject of authoritarian crackdown, prompting the 
Abedinis to return to the United States.
  On September 26, 2014, Saeed Abedini returned to Iran to visit family 
and continue his humanitarian work to establish an orphanage. During 
this trip, Saeed was arrested and charged with undermining national 
security. In early 2013, Saeed was transferred from Tehran to the Rajai 
Shahr prison in the town of Karaj, an institution known for harsher and 
often life-threatening conditions.
  I call on the administration to act swiftly for the immediate return 
of this American to his family.

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