to see his family amid fresh hopes he may be released early next year, a Christian news agency reported late Tuesday, November 8.
Compass Direct said Hamid Pourmand, who was also pastor of an Assemblies of God congregation, has been allowed to visit his family on a monthly basis since August.
He also has good relations with guards and prisoners at Evin Prison in Tehran, where he was held with several prominent political dissidents, including journalist Akbar Ganji, the news agency said.
Despite earlier reports that Pourmand’s case had been appealed before the Iranian Supreme Court, Compass Direct quoted unidentified sources as saying that his lawyer decided to drop the appeal out of fear that it would be "perpetually delayed, giving authorities an excuse to keep the Christian in prison."
PSYCHOLOGICALLY TORTURED
While in prison, Pourmand has been psychologically tortured – more than once told that he would be imminently hanged, and at other times forced to listen to the screams of children, Compass Direct claimed. It was not immediately clear how it had obtained this information, but human rights watchers have expressed concern over prison conditions in Iran.
Pourmand’s lawyer hopes the government may accept a petition to grant his client amnesty either on the anniversary of the Islamic revolution, February 11, or during the Iranian Now Ruz (new year) festivities on March 20, Compass Direct reported.
Police arrested Pourmand in September 2004 during a raid of an Assemblies of God general conference in which a total of 86 Christians were taken into custody. All but Pourmand were released within four days.
SOLITARTY CONFINEMENT
The former colonel spent almost five months in solitary confinement before being tried by a military court in February. The tribunal found Pourmand guilty of "deceiving the army about his religion," thereby breaking Iranian law, which does not allow a non-Muslim to hold a position of authority over a Muslim.
Pourmand reportedly produced documentation that the army had known about his conversion to Christianity, but the military court claimed the documents were forged. The military court sentenced Pourmand to three years in Tehran’s Evin Prison. It remains unclear whether this includes the five months that he had already spent in prison, the news agency reported.
Pourmand faced a second trial in May, when he was brought before a Sharia (Islamic) court in his hometown of Bandar-i Bushehr on charges of apostasy. Under Iranian law, converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by death.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
Amid international pressure, the former army colonel was cleared of the apostasy charges and authorities immediately returned him to Tehran to complete his three-year jail sentence.
Pourmand’s wife and two teenage sons were evicted from their residence on military property after Pourmand’s was fired from the army. With no steady source of income, Pourmand’s wife and younger son have moved in with her parents in Tehran, while the older son has gone abroad to pursue university studies, Compass Direct said.
There is concern within his family about Pourmand’s future after his eventual release amid fears of possible Islamic revenge attacks against him, Compass Direct suggested. The murders of four of Iran’s Iran’s leading Protestant pastors during the mid-1990s have never been brought to justice. One of the victims, convert Mehdi Dibaj, was killed six months after completing a nine-year jail term, Compass Direct reported. (With reports from Iran)
