Youcef Nadarkhani (born 1977) is an Iranian Christian pastor who was sentenced to death (but later acquitted) in Tehran as being a Christian having been born into Islam. Initial reports, including a 2010 brief from the Iranian Supreme court, stated that the sentence on Nadarkhani (first name also spelled Yousef, Youssef, or Yousof; last name also spelled Nadar-Khani or Nadar Khani) was based on the crime of apostasy, renouncing his Islamic faith. Government officials later claimed that the sentence was instead based on alleged violent crimes, specifically rape and extortion; however, no formal charges or evidence of violent crimes have been presented in court. According to Amnesty International and Nadarkhani's legal team, the Iranian government had offered leniency if he were to recant his Christianity. His lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah stated that an appeals court upheld his sentence after he refused to renounce his Christian faith and convert to Islam In early September 2012, Nadarkhani was acquitted of apostasy, but found guilty of evangelizing Muslims, though he was immediately released as having served prison time. However, he was taken back into custody on Christmas Day 2012 and then released shortly afterwards on 7 January 2013. Nadarkhani was again arrested and beaten on 22 July 2018 and is currently in prison in Iran. Apostasy Law in Iran After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iranian Christians were recognized as a "protected religious minority" and according to the Constitution of Iran possess freedom of religion and even have a Member of Parliament (MP) representing them. However, evangelism and missionary work and converting Muslims to Christianity is prohibited by law. Additionally, Christians and other minority religions are often subject to state-sanctioned discrimination. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is officially no crime known as apostasy in the penal code (although there was a law about it prior to 1994). The last known execution for this crime was in 1990. However, despite there being no official civil law of apostasy, judges may still convict a defendant of that crime if they rule based on religious fatwas. As a result, a few people have been convicted of it, but there have been no known executions. In 2011 a man was executed in Ahvaz, Iran for blasphemy and "spreading corruption on the earth" (Mofsed-Fel-Arz) when he claimed that he was God, and attracting a "following" around himself. According to the fatwas, for a man, if convicted, the