- Nadine Maenza, thank you somuch for coming on the show.

Tell us about the case ofPastor Youcef Nadarkhani.

- Sure, so Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani

is a prisoner of consciousthat I've adopted

as a commissioner on the US Commission

on International Religious Freedom.

Just over two years ago, in July of 2018,

armed men came to IranianPastor Nadarkhani's home

in the middle of the night, beat him,

tasered his 14-year-old son,

and then hauled him off tojail, where he remains today.

He's currently in one ofthe most notorious prisons

in the world, the Evin prison in Tehran,

simply for following his faith.

So he's been arrested and tried on charges

of promoting Zionist Christianity

and acting against national security,

really, for being a pastor of a church.

He was convicted,

although he's beenappealing that since 2016.

So he is a pastor of a homechurch of about 400 people.

He was born into anon-religious Muslim family,

but became a Christian at age 19.

As in most countries in theMiddle East, or all really,

you're not allowed to change your religion

if you're a Muslim.

But most aren't quite as severe as Iran,

where the punishment is extremely severe.

And he was actually earliersentenced to death in 2010

and then, because of theoutcry against that sentence,

he ended up being releasedfor time served in 2012.

So he, the Iraniangovernment has gone after him

quite a bit, simply because of his faith.

- Yeah, there is some concernabout his health condition.

Tell us what's what's the latest.

- Sure, well in September,he went on a hunger strike

after the governmentdenied both of his sons,

Daniel and Yoel, permissionto advance their education

because they had opted outof a Muslim religion classes,

which you can do accordingto the constitution,

but of course, it came at a cost.

So we knew he was weakened by that.

We're concerned, of course.

There's COVID in the prison.

And there's been a lot of newsthat a lot of the prisoners

have been released or furloughedbecause of the pandemic.

Pastor Nadarkhani was not one of those,

so he's still in prison.

He has an additional 10 years to serve.

So we're concerned about his health

and we would ask thegovernment to release him

in hope that the USgovernment would negotiate

or negotiate, would ask forhis release, I should say.

- Iran, as you know, is oneof the most dangerous places

in the world for Christiansand other religious minorities,

including gays and lesbians.

Tell us what are the challenges they face.

- Yeah, so they're reallytargeted because of their faith.

I mean, we see this with Christians,

as you mentioned, Jews,Baha'i, Sufis, Sunnis.

They're very vulnerablein many different ways.

The government uses alot of different laws

to go after them.

And also, as you've mentioned,with the LGBT community,

they use religion to go after them

and having a lot of executions,

jailing women, targeting atheists.

So they go after people of faith

and then they use religion laws

to go after other people as well

in order to really target everyone

who really isn't a Shia Muslim.

And for that reason, the US Commission

on International ReligiousFreedom has recommended

that Iran be a country ofparticular concern since 2002.

It has among the worstreligious freedom conditions

in the world, systematic, ongoing,

and egregious violations.

Those are the three wordsthat you really have to meet

to be a country of particular concern,

and they certainly do that.

- A survey came outjust earlier this summer

showing that, in fact, many Iranians

are turning their back on religion,

specifically the stateinstitutional religion,

in this case, Islam.

Right?

- Right, and we're seeing that

in places like Saudi Arabia as well,

where, when people areforced to follow a faith,

and you'll see the populationnot embrace it as holistic

when it's not choice they got to make.

So certainly that's whatwe're seeing in Iran as well.

- Okay, terrific.

Nadine, as always,

thank you so much forcoming on the broadcast.

- Thanks for having me.- You're welcome.