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Heart and Soul: Faith in Freedom: Faith in Freedom: Maryam and Marziyeh

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh

30/11/2018 GMT

Faith in Freedom: Maryam and Marziyeh

Faith in Freedom

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Faith in Freedom, Faith in Freedom: Maryam and Marziyeh

John McCarthy meets Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh who were imprisoned for distributing Bibles in Iran

John McCarthy meets people who have had to confront their own beliefs while held captive. John who was held hostage by Islamic radical groups in Lebanon, speaks to two Iranian women who risked torture in one of the world’s most notorious prisons after being convicted of apostasy for spreading the message of Christianity in their strictly Islamic home country.

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh were known as the ‘dirty Christians’ in Evin prison where they suffered horrendous conditions and witnessed daily abuse. But this did not stop them from sharing the Gospel within the prison.  

But what the authorities didn't know was that they had distributed approximately twenty thousand bibles they had given out before they were sent to Evin.

They now live in the US, and despite the daily horrors they witnessed, Maryam and Marziyeh see Evin as a church – somewhere they were placed by God to spread the word. But John will ask about their work now in a country where there is freedom to pray and preach. 

Presenter: John McCarthy
Producer: Geoff Bird

Heart and Soul: Faith in Freedom

John McCarthy meets people who have had to confront their own beliefs while held captive.

Episode 1: Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh
In a new series of Faith in Freedom for Heart and Soul, John McCarthy meets people who have had to confront their own beliefs while held captive or prisoner.
In the first episode John, who was held hostage by Islamic radical groups in Lebanon, speaks to two Iranian women who risked torture in one of the world’s most notorious prisons to spread the word of the Christian Bible.

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh were known as the ‘dirty Christians’ in Evin prison where they suffered horrendous conditions and witnessed daily abuse, but despite that they carried on sharing the Gospel within the prison.  They now live in the USA, and despite the daily horrors they witnessed, Maryam and Marziyeh see Evin as a church, somewhere they were placed by God to spread the word. But John will ask about their work now in a country where there is freedom to pray and preach. Are they still carrying out God’s work?

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