Pastor Saeed Describes Details of Torture He Endured in Iran Prison - EMILY STEPHENSON/REUTERS CHARISMA NEWS

Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Idaho is pictured with Congressman Robert Pittenger at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany. (Reuters)

Pastor Saeed Describes Details of Torture He Endured in Iran Prison

1/26/2016 EMILY STEPHENSON/REUTERS  charisma news

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Saeed Abedini, an American pastor freed this month from an Iranian prison as part of a U.S.-Iranian prisoner swap, said in a television interview aired on Monday that he was tortured and left in solitary confinement for refusing to sign a false confession and saw other prisoners being taken to be hanged. 

Abedini told Fox News that while in Tehran's Evin prison he was beaten by interrogators, left with an al Qaeda prisoner who tried to kill him and watched people screaming and crying while taken to be hanged. 

"Yes, in interrogation once they beat me very badly because they wanted me to write something I didn't do ... Actually it was in a courtroom that the judge closed the door and the interrogators started beating me, and at that time I got a stomach bleeding," he told Fox News. 

"The worst thing that I saw was when they took some Sunnis for execution...Most of them were Sunnis, some of them were political prisoners.... I can say most were executed for their faith." 

Abedini was supposed to be reunited with his wife and children on Monday at a Christian center in North Carolina, but it was delayed because the family's travel plans have been "in flux day-to-day," a spokesman for the center said. 

The Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove, founded by the famed evangelical minister and his family, said Abedini wanted time to adjust and reconnect with his family after more than three years of imprisonment in Iran. 

Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, told Reuters last week the couple would work on their marriage. She said in a message to supporters that became public that her husband had been abusive and suffered from a pornography addiction. 

Abedini arrived at the Asheville, North Carolina, center on Thursday. He and his avid supporter Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, have so far declined comment. 

Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran's national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there. 

Abedini was one of five Americans released by Iran in exchange for clemency to seven Iranians who were convicted or facing trial in the United States. The swap was announced at the same time as international sanctions on Iran were lifted in a deal with the United States and other major powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program. 

© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Pastor Saeed Abedini Released from Iranian Prison!

BREAKING NEWS - CBN NEWS

Saeed Abedini Released from Iranian Prison

Saturday, 01-16-2016

Iran has released four imprisoned U.S citizens, including American Pastor Saeed Abedini, as part of a trade, according to an Iranian news media.

A report by the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted a statement from the Tehran prosecutor's office as saying the inmates were freed "within the framework of exchanging prisoners." It did not elaborate.

 U.S. officials would not immediately confirm the announcement, but they had indicated a prisoner deal would be separate from Saturday's expected "implementation" of the landmark nuclear deal.

The American Center for Law and Justice confirmed the release.

 "We can confirm. He has been released," said Jordan Sekulow with the ACLJ.

 Nagmeh Abedini. Saeed's wife, also wrote on her Facebook page that "It is confirmed: Saeed is released!!!"

Pastor Saeed Abedini was detained for sharing his faith in September 2012. He was sentenced in 2013 to eight years in prison. His family said he was beaten and denied medical treatment while in the Iranian prison.

At time of arrest, he was running an orphanage in Iran which the government knew about.

Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati of Flint, and Siamak Namazi, a businessman and the son of a politician from the shah's era, were also released. All four are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens.

U.S. officials say the four Americans were to be flown from Iran to Switzerland on a Swiss plane and then brought to a U.S. military base in Landstuhl, Germany, for medical treatment.

Stay with CBN News for more on this developing story.

Saeed's Christmas Message from 'Hard, Cold' Prison

CBNNews.com

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

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Saeed Abedini has penned a Christmas letter to his family and supporters from the confines of the brutal Rajai Shahr Prison in Iran.

The American pastor was jailed by the Iranian government two years ago for refusing to recant his faith. In his letter, he notes this is the first time he'll be spending the holiday without his family.

"These conditions have made this upcoming Christmas season very hard, cold and shattering for me. It appears that I am alone with no one left beside me," he wrote.

But for Abedini, his brutal circumstances have only served to drive home the meaning of the holiday.

Read Pastor Saeed's full letter below:

Merry Christmas!

These days are very cold here. My small space beside the window is without glass making most nights unbearable to sleep. The treatment by fellow prisoners is also quite cold and at times hostile. Some of my fellow prisoners don't like me because I am a convert and a pastor. They look at me with shame as someone who has betrayed his former religion. The guards can't even stand the paper cross that I have made and hung next to me as a sign of my faith and in anticipation of celebrating my Savior's birth. They have threatened me and forced me to remove it. This is the first Christmas that I am completely without my family; all of my family is presently outside of the country. These conditions have made this upcoming Christmas season very hard, cold and shattering for me. It appears that I am alone with no one left beside me.

These cold and brittle conditions have made me wonder why God chose the hardest time of the year to become flesh and why He came to the earth in the weakest human condition (as a baby). Why did God choose the hardest place to be born in the cold weather? Why did God choose to be born in a manger in a stable, which is very cold, filthy and unsanitary with an unpleasant smell? Why did the birth have to be in such a way that it was not only hard physically, but also socially? It must have brought such shame for Mary and her fiancé that she was pregnant before marriage in the religious society of that time.

Dear sisters and brothers, the fact of the Gospel is that it is not only the story of Jesus, but it is the key of how we are to live and serve like Jesus. Today we like Him should come out of our safe comfort zone in order to proclaim the Word of Life and Salvation though faith in Jesus Christ and the penalty of sin that He paid on the cross and to proclaim His resurrection. We should be able to tolerate the cold, the difficulties and the shame in order to serve God. We should be able to enter into the pain of the cold dark world. Then we are able to give the fiery love of Christ to the cold wintery manger of those who are spiritually dead. It might be necessary to come out of the comfort of our lives and leave the loving embrace of our family to enter the manger of the lives of others, such as it has been for me for the third consecutive Christmas. It may be that we will be called fools and traitors and face many difficulties, but we should crucify our will and wishes even more until the world hears and tastes the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas means that God came so that He would enter your hearts today and transform your lives and to replace your pain with indescribable joy.

Christmas is the manifestation of the radiant brightness of the Glory of God in the birth of a child named Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

Christmas is the day that the heat of the life-giving fire of God's love shone in the dark cold wintry frozen hearts and burst forth in this deadly wicked world.

The same way that the heat from the earth's core melts the hard stones in itself and produces lava, the fiery love of God, Jesus Christ, through the virgin Mary's womb came to earth on Christmas to melt the hard heart of sin and wickedness of the world and removes them from our life. In the same process, the work of the Holy Spirit is a fiery rain of God's Holiness and Mercy that flows into our body, soul and spirit and brings the light of Christ into us and through us making this dark, cold, wintry world into radiant burning brightness. He is turning our world into a world full of peace, joy, and love that is so different than the dark, cold, and wintry world that we used to live in. Hallelujah!

So this Christmas let the lava-like love of Christ enter into the depth of your heart and make you fiery, ready to pay any cost in order to bring the same lava love to the cold world around you, transforming them with the true message of Christmas.

Pastor Saeed Abedini

Soaking in the lava love of Christ

Saeed Sends Easter Message from Hospital Bed

Pastor Saeed Abedini in Iran

Saeed Sends Easter Message from Hospital Bed

April 22, 2014  CBN News.com

Pastor Saeed Abedini sent an Easter message from his hospital bed in Iran, where he's serving an eight-year sentence for his faith.

The American pastor was visiting Iran to start an orphanage when the Islamic regime arrested and sentenced him to prison.

He was recently transferred to an Iranian hospital to be treated for injuries he has suffered while incarcerated.

"Sometimes we want to experience the glory and resurrection with Jesus without experiencing death with Him," Abedini wrote. "We do not realize that unless we pass through the path of death with Christ, we are not able to experience resurrection with Christ."

Abedini signed the message from a "prisoner of darkness in Iran, but free for the kingdom and light."

Click here to read the entire message.

Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, recently said he's doing better now that he's getting some medical treatment. He's finally being given decent meals and pain medication, but still needs surgery.

Sign the American Center for Law and Justice's petition to free Saeed Abedini here.

Saeed Has Led 30 to Christ in Iran Prison

Wife: Saeed Has Led 30 to Christ in Iran Prison

Click here: CBN News interview

CBNNews.com, Monday, September 23, 2013

The wife of the American pastor imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith says her husband remains bold for Jesus Christ in prison.

Saeed Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, recently spoke to students at Liberty University about her family's plight.

She said in spite of being tortured and asked to deny his faith in Christ and return to Islam, Pastor Saeed is a light for Jesus in Evin Prison, one of the worst in the world.

"They've told him many times that they would free him and allow him to return to our family, the kids and I, if he would deny his Christian faith, and he's stood strong in that prison. He's led many, many - over 30 people - to Christ in that prison," she told the audience.

Watch Naghmeh Abedini's full speech below:

Click here: CBN News

A special prayer vigil for Pastor Saeed is being held worldwide Thursday, Sept. 26 -- the one-year anniversary of his imprisonment in Iran.

It's also the day Iran's new president will be making his first trip to America to address the United Nations.

"Now is the time to speak out, to urge Iran to release Pastor Saeed," Jordon Sekulow, executive director for the American Center for Law and Justice, said in an email.

Demand Saeed’s Freedom. Write a letter. Be Heard.