A federal court in Virginia has ordered Saeed Abedini, who garnered headlines in the 2010s when he was imprisoned for his faith in Iran, to return his 5-year-old daughter to her mother in Turkey.
U.S. District Senior Judge Norman Moon of the Western District of Virginia ruled last Friday that Abedini had taken the girl out of Turkey and to the U.S. in 2024 without permission from her mother, Niloofar Aragh, an Iranian Christian refugee.
“Based on the substantial evidence introduced during today’s hearing, including respondent’s history of failure to comply with court orders and respondent’s correspondence insisting he would defy an order transferring custody, the court finds it necessary to order this custody transfer immediately,” Moon wrote, according to Religion News Service.
Aragh and Abedini reportedly met in Turkey and lived together for several years. Abedini claims to have performed a ceremony that made them effectively married, though legally speaking they were not.
Devon Slovensky, attorney for Aragh, told RNS that Abedini’s claims that he was still being threatened by the Iranian regime worked against his argument for custody of the girl.
“Then the question became, well, why do you need your daughter close to you if you’re being stalked and these people are persecuting you wherever you go?” Slovensky asked.
“What we see here is an Iranian Christian refugee fighting to get her child back through a court system where she can’t even speak the language, and being successful. … I think that is, like, a really awesome story about righteousness and justice.”
Abedini garnered headlines in 2012 when he was put under house arrest and then imprisoned in his native Iran for participating in Christian home churches in the Islamic Republic.
Naghmeh Panahi, Abedini's ex-wife, launched an online fundraiser aimed at helping to raise money to support Aragh, which as of Wednesday totaled a little over $15,000.
According to the fundraiser, the girl was 3 years old when she was taken out of Turkey by Abedini, whom the petition referred to as "a fugitive from Turkey."
"More than a year and a half of her short life has been spent apart from her mother, her brother, and the only home she ever knew," the petition states. "After eighteen months of relentless effort, a U.S. court has agreed to hear this mother's case. Attorneys have stepped forward to represent her without advance payment, giving this family a genuine chance to be together again."
Abedini's plight in Iran as Iranian-American pastor became a major focal point of religious freedom advocacy groups, as well as a subject of multiple congressional hearings.
While her husband was imprisoned, Panahi regularly spoke at events and on Capitol Hill on his behalf, urging for his release amid reports that he was being tortured and denied medical care.
In November 2015, Panahi announced she was suspending her advocacy, citing her husband’s alleged history of abuse against her, even while imprisoned.
After Pastor Abedini was released in January 2016, the couple divorced in April 2017, with Saeed Abedini denying the allegations his ex-wife made in 2015.
In February 2017, Abedini was sentenced to 180 days in jail and community service and fined $1,000 for violating a restraining order that Panahi took out against him.
