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Iranian overstayer Thomas Yadegary.

Barnabas Fund asks New Zealand Government to reconsider status.

Barnabas Fund is calling for the New Zealand government to urgently reconsider the status of Iranian overstayer Thomas Yadegary.

New Zealand director, the Rev. Julian Dobbs, has written to the Hon. Clayton Cosgrove, associate minister of immigration, asking him to use his discretionary authority and reconsider allowing Yadegary to permanently reside in New Zealand.

Suggestions from the Labour Department that their research does not indicate any humanitarian reasons why Mr Yadegary should not be removed to Iran is clearly indefensible.

In countries where Sharia’ (Islamic) Law is implemented Christian converts are severely persecuted. In such countries, some converts face imprisonment, beatings, torture and death.

In 2002 an Iranian cleric demanded death for Christian leaders who dared to criticize Islam. Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohsen Mujtahed Shabestari, called for the death of three prominent American Christian leaders criticized Islam. The Iranian Farsi daily "Abrar" reported Shabestari as “In our opinion, to kill these three is necessary”. Shabestari is the personal representative of Iranian President Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the country’s Azerbaijan province.

The right to religious freedom, including the right of individuals to change their religion, is taken for granted by most people in the West. The Universal Declaration of Human Right (Article 18) states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief…”

However, in Islam, all schools of law (madhhahib) agree that adult male apostates from Islam (such as Thomas Yadegary) should be killed. If the death penalty is not implemented, Islamic Law also specifies various other penalties for apostates, including the annulment of their marriage, the loss of their children and all their property, the suspension of all financial and legal contracts and inheritance rights, all to be returned if they revert to Islam.

Documentation to illustrate such suffering is widely available.

Barnabas Fund works in 50 countries around the world raising the plight of suffering and persecuted Christians who live in Muslim majority countries.

http://www.barnabasfund.org

ENDS

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