Hamid Pourmand - Additional Charges of Apostasy and Acquittion

Additional Charges of Apostasy and Acquittion

After being convicted in the military court, further charges of apostasy and proselytizing were brought against Pourmand. Under the Islamic Sharia law, if convicted he would have received the death penalty.

During the initial nine months of imprisonment, Pourmand was subjected to repeated pressures to recant his Christian faith and return to Islam in order to escape execution for apostasy, as required under the theocratic Islamic Sharia law of Iran.

Pourmand is the first Iranian convert to be charged with apostasy since 1993 when Iranian Pastor Mehdi Dibaj was sentenced to death. Although Dibaj was released three weeks later following protests from the international community initiated by his close friend and colleague Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, he was murdered six months later. Dibaj's murder was soon followed by the abduction and murder of Haik Hovsepian Mehr three days later. Like Pourmand, both Dibaj and Mehr were members of the Jama'at-e Rabbani Church.

The last execution to have taken place for apostasy in Iran was on December 3, 1989 when the evangelist and pastor of the Jama'at-e Rabbani Church in Mashad, Rev. Hossein Soodmand was hanged until death.

On May 28, 2005, a court in Bushehr acquitted Hamid Pourmand on further charges of apostasy and proselytizing, declaring that "under Sharia law, there are no charges against you." During the hearing, the judge reportedly told him, "I don't know who you are, but apparently the rest of the world does. You must be an important person, because many people from government have called me, saying to cancel your case."

The international human rights watch group Amnesty International believed Hamid Pourmand to be a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely on account of his religion, stemming from legal discrimination against Christians in Iran. However, Iran's judiciary stated on May 2, 2005, that Pourmand was in jail for breaking the law and not because of his religion.

Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad claimed that Pourmand had been "involved in a political group" while serving in the armed forces, which is forbidden by Iranian law. The spokesman also stated that Hamid Pourmand "appealed the three-year sentence, but the appeal court upheld the lower court's conviction."

During the court hearings in February, court officials reportedly declared that for many years Pourmand had belonged to "an underground church through which many Muslims had deserted Islam and became Christians".