Source: Article18, September 24, 2020<\/p>\n
Lydia was just three months old when she was adopted by Iranian Christian converts Sam Khosravi and wife Maryam Falahi.<\/p>\n
Now, just one month before her second birthday, a court ruled she must be taken away from them, as Sam and Maryam\u2014who are currently appealing against convictions related to their membership of a house-church\u2014are \u201cnot fit\u201d to be her parents.<\/p>\n
The ruling, handed down by a court in their home city of Bushehr, southwestern Iran, on July 19 but not reported until now, was upheld by a court of appeal on September 22, despite the judge in his initial verdict acknowledging that Lydia felt an \u201cintense emotional attachment\u201d to her adoptive parents and saying there was \u201czero chance\u201d another adoptive family would be found for her, given Lydia\u2019s health problems.<\/p>\n
But that didn\u2019t prevent [judge Muhammad Hassan Dashti] from ruling against Lydia\u2019s adoptive parents\u2014and for one reason: they are Christian converts, and Lydia, though her parentage is not known, is considered a Muslim, and as such by law ought only to be cared for by Muslim parents.<\/p>\n
Sam and Maryam maintain that they were always clear about their conversion to Christianity; however, the judge ruled that Lydia\u2014a nominally \u201cMuslim\u201d child\u2014should never have been placed in their care.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Full story<\/a> includes photos and more context. A related article from Middle East Concern<\/a> adds, \u201cSam, Maryam, and their friends request prayer that in this deeply distressing time for the family, the Lord will grant them his deep peace and work a miracle to allow Sam and Maryam to keep and care for Lydia as their adoptive child.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Article18, September 24, 2020 Lydia was just three months old when she was adopted by Iranian Christian converts Sam Khosravi and wife Maryam Falahi. Now, just one month before her second birthday, a court ruled she must be taken away from them, as Sam and Maryam\u2014who are currently appealing against convictions related to their … Continue reading IRAN: Christians Ruled Unfit to Parent Adopted Child<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9603,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9602\/revisions\/9603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}