Naghmeh Abedini: Silence in the Face of Evil is Evil Itself

Carrie Dedrick | Updated: Mar 02, 2015

Naghmeh Abedini: Silence in the Face of Evil is Evil Itself

Naghmeh Abedini, the wife of imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini, spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over the weekend, urging citizens to stand for religious freedom

Abedini has previously been vocal about her husband’s imprisonment in Iran, and recently held an audience with President Obama, who promised that he would do everything in his power to get the American pastor out of prison. 

In her speech, Abedini said, “My question is—as I’m proud to see my husband stand up for his faith in the face of evil—how are we standing up as a country for him? What kind of message are we sending to the world when we continue to negotiate while Iran continues to abuse one of our own, an American pastor?”

She continued, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself. That means when we don’t act and we don’t speak, we are doing the same things that the persecutors are doing to my husband… When we don’t speak in the face of evil, we’re doing that evil ourselves.”

Abedini also warned that the United States is at risk of losing its own religious freedom if citizens continued to be silent about religious persecution in the larger world. 

“If we don’t address what’s going on across the world, it will be something we will have to deal with here. And we’re seeing we’re losing our religious freedom here.”

“This great nation is blessed because of our foundation on Jesus Christ. My prayer is that…we would turn our eyes back on Jesus, that we will repent of the ways that we have looked to other things to fulfill us, and that we would turn our eyes back to Jesus and pray and cry out for healing for our nation, and that we get back to our core value of religious freedom.”

Publication date: March 2, 2015



Naghmeh Abedini: Silence in the Face of Evil is Evil Itself