Yousef Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old Christian cleric, is facing death at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran for apostasy against a faith he never held. In the fall of 2010, a Revolutionary Tribunal affirmed his prior death sentence, and the case was appealed to Iran's Supreme Court. In June, the high court asked the lower court in Rasht to review whether Mr. Nadarkhani had been a practicing Muslim at the age of maturity, which is 15 in Iran. Prosecutors acknowledged that he had never been a Muslim as an adult but said that the apostasy law still applies because he has "Islamic ancestry."
I doubt there is a real precedent for "Islamic ancestry" making one a Muslim, only that the Iranian justice system is bent on murdering this man. There is precedent in the Islamic tradition: that we are all born Muslim, but some turn out different because of their upbringing, so all infidels must therefore be apostates & subject to the death penalty if they don't convert on demand. |