week when his trial begins before an Islamic (sharia) court of Iran on charges of apostasy from Islam and proselytizing Muslims to Christianity, a news agency reported late Tuesday April 5.
Compass Direct said the trial was set to begin between April 11 and 14 and that the charges are "punishable by death." Pourmand, now 47, converted from Islam to Christianity nearly 25 years ago. He spent several months in solitary confinement after his arrest at a Christian conference last September. Poumand was the only one of over 80 Assemblies of God church leaders arrested at the gathering who was not released, despite international pressure.
Human rights watchers fear he may face the same treatment as one of Iran’s leading Protestant pastors, who was executed in December 1990 after a sharia court condemned him. Hussein Soodman, who an Assemblies of God pastor and a Muslim convert to Christianity, has been involved in Christian ministry for 24 years, Compass Direct said. He was reportedly hanged on December 3, 1990, as part of what was seen as a new wave of repression directed against the small Christian community in the Islamic Republic.
Pourmand, an army colonel at the time of his arrest, was sentenced by a military court to three years imprisonment on February 16 for “deceiving” the Iranian armed forces about his Christian faith, despite apparent evidence to the contrary. The Islamic regime in Iran has made it illegal for a non-Muslim citizen to serve as a military officer, since that puts him in a position of authority over Muslim soldiers, Compass Direct and other sources said.
SEPERATE TRIAL
The military court verdict is currently under appeal to the Supreme Court but with a separate trial now underway before a sharia court of Islamic "he could face the death penalty", added Compass Direct, which investigates the plight of persecuted Christians.
It quoted one Tehran source close to Pourmand’s case as saying he was hopeful that "this judicial proof of religious intolerance in Iran" would be highlighted during the annual six-week session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, convening now in Geneva, Switzerland.
The European Union lodged a formal protest with Iranian authorities last November over the arrests of Christians — and in particular Christian pastors — as an “infringement of the freedom of religion or belief."
"TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE"
Pourmand’s verdict was labeled "a shocking travesty of justice, even by Iran’s meager standards" by Nina Shea of Freedom House in Washington, D.C. His arrest was also noted in the latest report on human rights in Iran released in March by the U.S. State Department.
Transferred to a group prison cell at Tehran’s maximum-security Evin Prison after the February trial, Pourmand’s sentence automatically discharged him from the army, cutting off his regular income and eliminating nearly 20 years of military pension. Pourmand’s wife and two children were required to immediately vacate their home in military lodgings. "His family has nothing now," a source allegedly confirmed to Compass Direct. "No salary, no house, nothing."
Pourmand and his wife Arlet, who is from an Assyrian Christian background, have two teenage sons, Immanuel and David. They were living in Bandar-i Bushehr, a southern port city where he served as volunteer lay pastor of a small Assemblies of God congregation. (With Compass Direct and reports from Iran)
