Iranian Christian pastor (1935-1994)
Mehdi Dibaj (1935 – June/July 1994) was an Iranian Christian convert from Shia Islam, pastor and Christian martyr.
Background.
Dibaj became a Christian as a young man and joined the Presbyterian church, but years later, he joined the church of Assembly of God, the Iranian branch of the Jama'at-e Rabbani Church. After the 1979 Iranian revolution he encountered difficulties. In 1983 he was arrested and imprisoned without trial in Sari and systematically tortured. During his imprisonment he was held in solitary confinement in a dark cell a metre in height, width and depth for two years. He was finally tried by an Islamic court in Sari on 3 December 1993 and sentenced to death on charges of apostasy.
On 18 January 1994, Bernard Levin reprinted Dibaj's courtroom speech in place of his usual column in The Times as a mark of respect.
Following a worldwide outcry initiated by his friend and colleague Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Dibaj was finally freed in January 1994, although the death sentence was not lifted. Just three days later Haik Hovsepian Mehr was murdered. The Times article and the murder of Hovsepian Mehr was alluded to in a debate in the House of Lords on Iran, and Viscount Brentford cited Levin's comment, 'how insubstantial must the grasp on a religion be, if it has to be propped up by hangings and woundings and beatings and murderings?'
Dibaj was abducted on Friday, 24 June 1994. His body was found in a west Tehran park on Tuesday, 5 July 1994.
References.
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