Only after my release from Iran’s notorious Evin prison in 2009 did I begin to learn about the extent of the wide, grassroots support my friend and I received from around the world. At one point, one senior prison official angrily let me know about the huge number of letters of support that were sent to us in prison, though we were never given access to any of them. The number must have been vast, in that it’s believed that the widespread pressure on the Islamic regime was at least in part responsible for our being released from death row, fearing the possibility of being executed by hanging at any time.

In addition to the vast grassroots support, I learned that world leaders, including Pope Benedict, also wrote and expressed their support, adding pressure to the Islamic regime from the top down.

It’s no secret that since 1979, the Islamic Republic has used arrests, torture, and execution as a means of repressing the Iranian people. Hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered over the decades, some following fake, staged trials like mine, where the verdict was predetermined. Others have been executed in cold blood on the streets, many of whose remains “disappeared” by being buried and literally paved over, thrown in lakes with their hands bound, and other sick, inhuman acts that define the Islamic Republic.

With hundreds of thousands of Iranians executed, what made my case different? Why the international outcry from people as influential as the Pope, and why does that matter today?

I was arrested in March 2009 and convicted of “apostacy,” carrying an automatic death sentence. My “crime?” I converted to Christianity a decade earlier. When my friend and I were arrested, all the authorities knew was that we had become Christians. That was a crime enough for them, and reason enough to sentence us to death by hanging. They did not know that we had distributed 20,000 Bibles across Iran, that we ran two home........

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