April 1, 2003
by Bruce Kueck

An Iranian woman seeking to become a refugee in Canada, who says she fears that, as a Christian convert she will be jailed, tortured or killed if forced to return to her homeland, is about to be returned to Iran.

Canada has decided to deport the woman by April 24 - a move that will send "Nancy" back to the land and people she fled two and a half years before.

"Nancy" is a pseudonym used by LCMSNews and other media to help protect the woman's identity.

Nancy, a communicant member of Ascension Lutheran Church, a Missouri Synod congregation in Montreal, says she was a fledgling convert to Christianity when she emigrated to Canada. When she did so, she claimed her life was in danger because she was a convert to Christianity in Iran where, according to her pastor, Rev. Harold Ristau, it is legal to be a Christian but illegal to convert to Christianity.

Last year, in an immigration-authority hearing, a judge delivered a ruling that, in effect, said Nancy couldn't possibly be in any danger in Iran because she was, in fact, not a Christian.

Ristau, who testified at the hearing that Nancy is indeed a baptized follower of Christ, said he was astounded by the ruling.

Later, in a letter of protest regarding the judge's ruling, Ristau said he personally has instructed Nancy in Lutheran Christian beliefs and said that she has become one of his congregation's most active communicant members.

But, the protest was to no avail, with Canadian officials saying that they lack the authority to question the judge's ruling.

At that point, Nancy's only hope for avoiding deportation lay in Canada's Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) program, which is meant to determine whether a person's life is in danger if he or she is deported.

But, said Ristau in a March 21 e-mail to "Reporter," the LCMS newspaper, that hope ended the day before when Nancy was informed that an analyst assigned to her case had rejected both her PRRA appeal and a simultaneous claim for humanitarian compassion.

According to Ristau, the government's decision states, in part, that, "there exists only the slight possibility that the refugee claimant would be a victim of persecution and that there are no serious reasons to believe that her life would be in danger or that she would be a victim of torture or of cruel and unusual punishment and/or treatment."

Yet, a March 24 United Press International article about Nancy's case quotes Patti Lyman, identified as an American attorney who handles asylum cases for Just Law International, a Virginia-based firm, as saying that a convert to Christianity "is more likely than not to be persecuted in Iran" and .".. will more likely than not be subjected to torture."

The same article quotes Paul Marshall, identified as a senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C., and a leading expert on religious persecution, as saying that "Iran has the death penalty for apostasy. ... Whether it will carry it out or not, we don't know."

For now, Nancy remains free, awaiting an unknown future. She can't stay in Canada, yet she believes she can't safely return to Iran. Realistically, she probably can't go to another Muslim-dominated nation; and, yet, she has been told by immigration experts that, if she tries to go to a non Muslim nation in, say, Europe, she will probably just be returned to Canada. Because Iran has been labeled a terrorist nation, and especially now that war has broken out between the United States and Iraq, which borders Iran, Nancy is believed to have virtually no chance of entering America.

So, what choice does she have?

As Ristau wrote in his e-mail to "Reporter," "If anyone has ideas, please e-mail. Certainly pray for this beloved sister in Christ."

Rev. Harold Ristau's e-mail address is ristau3@yahoo.com.

LCMS News