deportation back to Iran by Turkish authorities over the past week, a Christian news agency reported late Wednesday, October 26.
The turnaround was attributed to direct United States intervention in their case, reported Compass Direct, which investigates religious persecution. Zivar Khademian and her three adult children faced an October 20 deadline to leave Turkey or be sent back to Iran, where they faced probable arrest and the death sentence for apostasy.
The widowed Khademian, together with her daughter Fatemeh Moini, 19, and sons Hossein and Kazem Moini, both in their early 30s, were baptized by a Protestant church in Tehran shortly before they fled Iran in January 2003.
After nearly three years of failed attempts to obtain U.N. refugee status through the Ankara offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the family was unsure where to turn when Turkish police delivered their ultimatum on October 5 and handed back their passports, Compass Direct said.
MANY VISA APPLICATIONS
Over the next few days, the family’s inquiries about possible visas to Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus or even Singapore revealed only bleak options – all of them temporary and expensive.
But the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Refuge Legal Aid Program agreed to examine the case. After conducting an extensive interview with Kazem Moini on October 13, the organization wrote a three-page urgent appeal against the family’s deportation.
Several organizations including the United Nations Refugee Organization, UNHCR, also took up their case and finally the UNHCR informed them by telephone that US officials wanted to interview them for possible admission to the United States.
NO INDICATION YET
To date, the family has been given no indication how long a process could be required for them to leave Turkey for resettlement in the United States, should their case be approved.
The family’s applications for refugee status were turned down twice by the UNHCR in Ankara, despite proof that one son had been jailed merely for possessing and duplicating Christian tapes, Compass Direct reported. The mother had also obtained the original copy of an order for her arrest issued last October by the Supreme Court of Iran for committing apostasy, a capital crime in Iran.
Kazem Moini, the interpreter for his UNHCR interview was quoted as saying that "neither objective nor professional, and he questioned my motives for conversion from Islam to Christianity." (With reports from Turkey).
