This will be the third Christmas Saeed Abedini will spend in an Iranian prison, separated from his wife and two children.
The U.S. citizen and pastor was illegally imprisoned for his Christian faith in September 2012, prompting his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, to travel the world spreading awareness and engaging in mass prayer vigils for her husband’s return.
On Friday, she encouraged Gainesville’s 106.9 listeners to pressure the U.S. government to do more for his release.
While in town, Naghmeh attended a women’s brunch Saturday and spoke before the Gainesville Church of God during two Sunday services. She requested prayers and support.
“Keeping his story alive means keeping him alive,” she said.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a constitutional advocacy group, has presented Saeed’s case before international agencies, working with his wife to bring him home.
Naghmeh has traveled the world, appearing before British and Dutch Parliaments, the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and media networks requesting justice for Saeed.
“It hurts to be there without my husband, to be in the hotel rooms without him,” she said. “It’s a painful journey.”
When they lost contact after he was imprisoned, her children — Rebekka, 8, and Jacob, 6, — would beg for videos of their father playing with them at their Idaho home.
Their swollen eyes flickered with nostalgia as they stared at the screen, gripping memories and longing for his embrace.
“I would play it on the TV, and I’d just go into a different room and weep,” she said. “It was hard for me, watching those moments, but for them it was comforting.”
Naghmeh constantly prays for her husband’s hope, which has been threatened by the Iranian government. She said the government may keep him from ever reuniting with his family.
“Every phone call to your senator, they bring it back to the White House, they bring it back to D.C., and it makes a huge difference,” she said.
July 28, 2012: Saeed visited the Iranian orphanage he was building when the country’s Revolutionary Guard illegally arrested him because of his Christian faith and placed him on house arrest, according to the American Center for Law and Justice website.
Sept. 26, 2012: Saeed was taken from his parents’ Tehran home and placed in solitary confinement within Evin, one of Iran’s most brutal prisons. Saeed has reportedly been persecuted as he serves his eight-year sentence.
