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IRAN: TORTURED CHRISTIAN FLEES
'I have no doubt they wanted to kill me,' says former Muslim
ANKARA, July 21, 2008 (Compass Direct News) - Days after his release from a month of interrogation and severe torture under secret police custody, Iranian Christian Mohsen Namvar has fled across the border into Turkey with his family. Traveling by train, the badly beaten Christian arrived July 2 in eastern Turkey with his wife and son. Namvar, 44, had been held incommunicado by a branch of Sepah (the Iranian Revolutionary Guards) from May 31 until June 26, when authorities told his family they were releasing him "temporarily." Although the secret police demanded $43,000 in bail, officers refused to issue a court receipt for the family's cash payment. At the time of his release, Namvar was experiencing fever, severe back pain, extremely high blood pressure, uncontrollable shaking of his limbs and recurring short-term memory loss. "I have no doubt they wanted to kill me," Namvar told Compass. According to Namvar, who converted from Islam to Christianity as a teenager, his severe physical mistreatment stemmed from his refusal to give the police any names or information about other converts and house church groups in Iran.
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