Iranian converts to Christianity granted asylum in U.S.Mar 3, 2005 Becket Fund for Religious Liberty applauds Immigration Review decision An Iranian family's five-year fight to stay in the United States ended today when the United States Department of Justice Executive Office of Immigration Review in Chicago granted the family political asylum.
"The Executive Office made the right decision, the only tolerable decision," noted Jared Leland, Media and Legal Counsel for The Becket Fund. "To disregard the heinous truth about religious persecution in Iran would have been a crime in and of itself. Today, four lives and a fundamental right were saved."
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty--an international, interfaith, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions--was part of the team of lawyers representing Saeed Salman and his family in their battle against deportation to Iran. Salman and his family came to the United States from Iran on visitors' visas in 1999. Their application for political asylum was denied in July 2000 by a Chicago immigration judge and again in 2003 by the Board of Immigration Appeals. However, political persecution in Iran was not the family's only fear.
Salman and his family converted from Islam to Christianity in July 2000 and were baptized into the faith in 2003. Well aware that apostasy--or conversion from Islam to another faith--is punishable by death in Iran, Becket Fund attorneys and local counsel filed documents with the Immigration Board to highlight the ongoing religious persecution in Iran and request that the case be reopened in light of this legitimate threat that had yet to be considered. The Board agreed to reopen the case and the Executive Office rendered its judgment granting asylum with the death sentence the Salmans would face in mind.
"In this case, I am persuaded that apostasy in Iran is punishable by death," Judge Zerbe said in today's ruling. "As far as the sincerity of their conversion, I note that the respondents are found to be credible."
"Today, the United States did not turn its back on a family that faced execution for the crime of being faithful Christians," declared Becket Fund Attorney Roger Severino. "This family is supremely grateful for the very freedoms that we as Americans so often take for granted." Relevant Cases
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