Pastor Saeed Abedini Under Duress To Deny Christ In Iran Jail

Pastor Saeed Abedini, the American pastor serving an 8-year sentence in Tehran, Iran, is being pressured into converting back to Islam, but he has said that that will never happen.

"After all of these pressures, after all of the nails they have pressed against my hands and feet, they are only waiting for one thing…for me to deny Christ," Abedini wrote in a letter obtained by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), who is representing his wife and two children back in America.

The pastor, however, has said that "they will never get this from me," and expressed his gratitude to the over 260,000 people who have signed a petition calling for his release.

Jordan Sekulow, ACLJ Executive Director, said that he hopes that number will climb to 300,000 before his organization meets with U.N. Human Rights officials on March 5.

"Now is the time to redouble our efforts to save this courageous pastor, this U.S. citizen, from the darkness of an Iranian prison," Sekulow wrote.

The Iranian-born pastor is currently serving an eight year sentence in Evin Prison in Tehran, where he has been held since his arrest in September 2012. The Iranian court convicted him of endangering national security, but the ACLJ say that the real reason behind the trial was that Abedini has helped many Christians in underground churches in Iran since his conversion to Christianity in 2000.

Please continue to use every diplomatic avenue possible, in cooperation with allies and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to secure Mr. Abedini's unconditional release and personally and publicly condemn his arbitrary detention in a statement."