ICC Note: At least 78 members of the U.S. Congress have signed a letter demanding the immediate release of an American pastor and missionary being unlawfully detained in Turkey. Andrews Brunson of North Carolina was detained back in October with his wife, though she was released two weeks later. Brunson remains incarcerated to this day.

02/21/2017 Turkey/US (Christian Post): As many as 78 members of Congress have signed a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urging him to release a Christian pastor from North Carolina, who was imprisoned in Turkey on a false terrorism charge because of his Christian faith.

Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees sent a letter signed by 78 senators and representatives, urging President Erdogan to immediately release captive American pastor Andrew Brunson, a U.S. citizen from Black Mountain, North Carolina, who for more than two decades has been serving the Turkish people.

“Mr. Brunson has been unjustly held since his arrest in October and has been denied regular and appropriate access to legal counsel and American consular services,” the letter reads.

The pastor has spent “Thanksgiving, Christmas, and his birthday locked away in a prison cell in Turkey, the only Christian among 19 prisoners confined in a 10-person cell,” according to the American Center for Law and Justice, which, too, has been working to secure the pastor’s release.

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