China Aid Association
Editor’s note: This article was update at 11:09 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2013. Updated information appears in red.
Eddie Romero in an undated photo.
(Exodus8one.org)
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(Tehran—Oct. 21, 2013) A retired Californian pastor and former ChinaAid volunteer was taken into custody at Evin Prison in Iran at 12:30 a.m. CDT, Monday after a verbal protest against the detainment of five Iranian Christians.
Eddie Romero protested in English, Spanish and Farsi against what he says is the illegal detainment of Farshid Fathi, an Iranian Christian pastor; Saeed Abedini, a naturalized American citizen who was arrested for opening an orphanage in Tehran; Mostafa Bordbar, a Christian activist; Alireza Seyyedian, a member of the Christian house church in Iran; and Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, an Iranian human rights lawyer and co-founder of Defenders of Human Rights in Iran. In his protest, he cited Exodus chapter eight, verse one: “…This is what the Lord says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me.’”
Updates on Romero’s situation can be found on his website, exodus8one.org.
Romero conducted a similar protest before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and again in 2012 when China’s then-vice president Xi Jinping was visiting Los Angeles. ChinaAid reported on the second instance, which can be read at https://chinaaid.org/2012/02/la-pastor-arrested-for-protesting-for.html.
Romero is also a philosophy professor at Mt. San Antonio Community College in Walnut, Calif.
ChinaAid asks Christians worldwide to join with us in prayer for Romero, his family and his church family. We pray that the Lord will protect Romero during his time in custody and for his safe and swift return. We also pray that the Lord will provide protection to the five Iranian Christians for whose release Romero petitioned and that a passion for the Lord will spread across the nation of Iran.
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