John Crown (Independent)

It was nice to have a quick recitation of the civil war. It got me all nostalgic but I remind my colleagues that it ended 89 years ago. Three more contemporary issues need to be discussed this morning.

One of these is something we have dealt with before. I am asking my colleagues in the Seanad, the Leader and the leaders of the other parties if they would consider a further all-party motion in support of the Bahraini doctors who, since we last debated this and since our colleague, Senator Power, took part in a courageous trip to Bahrain in an attempt to raise the issue of their unjust detention, have been given sentences of between five and 15 years. Six of the doctors who have been given long sentences are associates or former associates of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. Although we have shilly-shallied around the issue before, at this stage we should be forthright in our opinion that no Irish organisation can in good conscience do business with a government that would do this to citizens, especially those who have been proud to be associated with higher education in this country.

On an allied issue, I ask the Leader to raise with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the plight of Pastor Nadarkhani, an Iranian Christian who has been sentenced to death in Iran for the grievous crime of being an apostate. His apostasy was his alleged conversion to Christianity from Islam, which is a capital offence in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The pastor maintains, however, that even if this crime was a valid charge, he was never a Muslim. He had never been received into the Islamic faith and as such, even by the strange and medieval constraints of the Iranian version of Sharia law, he does not merit the death sentence.

Now a further crime has been committed against this gentleman in that, two years after he was tried, found guilty and sentenced, in response to the justifiable international outrage that this man had been sentenced to death for no crime other than to have a religion that was not agreeable to the ruling junta in that country, the authorities are now alleging that in fact his crime was rape, compounded by Zionism and treason against the state. From a review of the original court documents from 2010, it is clear this is not the case. The charging document states: "Mr. Youcef Nadarkhani, son of Byrom, 32-years old, married, born in Rasht in the state of Gilan is convicted of turning his back on Islam, the greatest religion, the prophesy of Mohammad, at the age of 19."