This latest story from Baxter is very disturbing. The man, who was a convert from Islam to Christianity, was attending the weekly Christian worship service which is held on a Thursday afternoon in the Baxter centre. While he was at the service last Thursday, DIMIA officials packed up all his belongings. When he left the service he was asked to go to the DIMIA office. There, he was told he was to forcibly deported and without notice was taken immediately to Whyalla where he was flown to Adelaide, then Perth, the Dubai, then Tehrahan. He has arrived in Iran but has not yet been sighted by his family- so it appears he has been taken into custody at the airport.
The article in the Age puts his life at terrible risk. The Iranian Embassy in Canberra do read the local papers and they have now been alerted that the man who was deported was a convert to Christianity. They may or may not have been aware of this before, but certainly do know now. Sue is right- conversion from Islam to any other religion carries a death penalty in Iran. Amanda Vanstone has acknowledged to UCA officials that deporting a Christian convert to Iran does put thier life at risk and she had promised that she would never deport a convert to Iran. Now this has happened. I would like to go to the media on this, let them know taht our government is deporting Christians to situations of persecution. But we cannnot do this as it only increases the risk to the person deported. But we should be spreading the word as much as we can through our congregations that this is what the Howard governmetn is doing As you can imagine, the Iranian Christians in Baxter are now in total panic, expecting at any moment that they too will be called up to DIMIA and forcibly deported. I have had several phone calls from Iranian Christians there who have pleaded with me to go to Canberra and talk personally to the Minister and tell her they are Christian and not to deport them. As if the Minister would agree to see me and if this did happen, would take any notice of me! Besides which we dont even know at the moment who the Minister for Immigration is. But they are desperate- not eating, not sleeping, desperately worried. To take one of thier friends straight out the worship service where they were all together has hit them very deeply. For those of you who do not know, the Assembly Standing Committee maintains a register of baptised members in Aus Detention Centres. There are at the moment about 20 men on that register, all held at Baxter, most of them Iranians who have converted from Islam to Christianity. I baptised many of them, so this issue effects me deeply. Please spread the word through our congregations. They need to know what our government is doing. And they need to be writing letters of protest to both the Minister and the PM. And pray for the man who was deported and for those still in detention. Bev -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Sue Bolton Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 9:54 AM To: Sue Bolton Cc: Stephen Webb; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Deportation raises fear fror Iranian man Sorry! Someone phoned as I was finishing the last sentence, and apparently I tapped 'send'. [I wondered where it had gone!] It should have concluded: ....[no] transparent judicial system, who knows? [In August a 16 year old girl, accused of a sexual encounter was executed for having a 'sharp tongue'.] > > > >>Deportation raises fears for Iranian man >>The Federal Government has forcibly deported an Iranian Christian to >>Iran, sparking criticism from church groups that he has been placed at >>risk. READ ON >><http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/15/1097784047168.html?oneclick= true> >> >The concluding paragraph is too soft. The US State Dept et al points >out that apostasy, conversion from Islam to any other religion, is >punishable by death in Iran. > >There have apparently been over a hundred public executions in Iran >this year alone. They are usually carried out on 'criminals', but in a >regime with no >Sue Bolton >Sydney, Australia >------------------------------------------------------ >- You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] >- To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) >See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm >------------------------------------------------------ Sue Bolton Sydney, Australia ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: The information in this message and any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. 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