Iranian author and dissident Marziyeh Amirizadeh recounted her imprisonment and threats of execution for converting to Christianity in a conversation last week on The Jerusalem Post's Sits Down With podcast.
“My life is in God's hands. It's not in yours,” she recalled telling the judge who threatened her with execution, speaking to Jerusalem Post News Editor Alex Winston. Amirizadeh added that she also told the judge, “You are not fighting with me. You're fighting with God."
Amirizadeh was arrested in 2009 after years of running underground churches and secretly distributing Bibles across Tehran. She recalled how she and a fellow Christian distributed some 20,000 Bibles throughout the Iranian capital, often slipping them into people's mailboxes at night.
Following her arrest, Amirizadeh said she was held for 14 days in an underground detention facility before appearing in court, where a judge accused her of apostasy and threatened to have her executed by hanging.
Reflecting on her childhood under the Islamic Republic, Amirizadeh also recalled being forced to chant "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" at school. She said the chants contradicted the values she learned at home, where her parents taught her love and respect for others.
The full article detailing Amirizadeh’s conversation on the podcast is set to be published next week, along with the second part of the interview on YouTube.