Arrest of Seven Bahá’í leaders
On 14 May 2008, in early morning raids, six of the seven members of the ad hoc group that serves the Bahá’í community of Iran were arrested, their homes were searched, some of their belongings were confiscated, and they were taken to an unknown location. The seventh member had been arrested in Mashhad in early March 2008.
After six days of denial, an Iranian government spokesman admitted that the Bahá’ís had been arrested, claiming that their detention was unrelated to their religion but because they were "… a group that has acted against the country's interests and has links with foreigners, especially the Zionists (Israel)" .
The prisoners were held incommunicado for several weeks and families were unable to establish where they were. They have since been permitted to make two brief calls to their families. Formal charges have not been brought against them and they have been denied access to legal counsel.
On 10 July 2008, Ministry of Intelligence officials searched the home of Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, (one of the members of the ad hoc group being held in prison in Iran) and confiscated some personal items, including a personal computer and some Bahá’í documents. Officials then demanded that Mr. Sabet turn over a number of items associated with his wife’s work as Secretary of the ad hoc group. The list that had been obtained from Mrs. Sabet by Ministry officials, included a typewriter, a fax machine, a computer, a scanner, and document files. On the same day, Mrs.Elham Javid, who serves as an assistant in Mrs. Sabet’s office, was summoned to the prison and then accompanied to her home by a Ministry of Intelligence official, where such items as her personal computer and printer were seized.
On 3 August 2008, Reuters reported an interview with the Deputy Prosecutor General for Security at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran published by Resalat, in which he claimed that the seven Baha'i individuals had confessed “to setting up an illegal organization in Iran that took orders from Israel and others to undermine the Islamic system.” The Bahá’í International Community responded immediately, pointing out that the Iranian government has been well aware of and has communicated with this group of Bahá’ís since it was established to take care of the needs of the 300,000 strong Bahá’í community in Iran. Iran also knows full well that the Bahá’í International governing body is located in Israel as the direct consequence of the exile of the founder of the Bahá’í Faith from Iran to a succession of cities and eventually to the Haifa/Acca area in what is today northern Israel, at the insistence of Ottoman/Persian authorities
On 25 July 2008 FIDH wrote an open letter to Nobel Prize Laureate appealing to her to represent the 7 Bahá’í prisoners. According to a 7 August 2008 AFP report\, Shirin Ebadi and two of her colleagues have confirmed that they will represent the imprisoned Bahá’í leaders in court. See ‘Attacks in Media’.
Note: There is no clergy in the Bahá’í Faith. The affairs of the Bahá’í community are administered by democratically elected bodies at the local, national and international level. The sudden arrest of the 7 members of the ad hoc group established to try to provide for the needs of the Bahá’í community following the banning of its formally elected institutions, recalls the early years of the Islamic revolution when the members of the national governing body of the Bahá’ís in Iran were ‘disappeared’ and those elected to replace them were executed.
Recent Arrests
Mr. Kamran Aghdasi
Mr. Kamran Aghdasi (Aghdasiyekta) arrested on 31 January 2008 and released eight days later, pending his trial, was sentenced on 13 April 2008 to one year in prison on charges of “teaching in the interest of groups opposing the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. Mr. Aghdasi began serving his sentence on 19June 2008 following rejection of his appeal by the Supreme Court on 11 May 2008. Mr. Aghdasi is a forty- year-old auto technician; he is married and has three children
Recent Violence Against Bahá’ís
Shaaker family in Kerman
In the early hours of Friday, 18 July 2008, the home of the Shaaker family in Kerman went up in flames, while the family was away on holidays. Neighbours reported hearing an explosion.
This family’s car had been set alight on 29 April 2008, while they were attending the commemoration of a Bahá’í Holy Day. They had been so harassed by threatening phone calls in April and May that they had to change their phone number.
Dehghani family in Vilashahr
In early July, the Dehghani household, as well as a number of other Bahá’í families in Vilashahr, received threatening letters and the walls of their homes were defaced with highly provocative graffiti
At midnight on 15 July 2008, the home of Mr. Khusraw Dehghani and his wife Dr. Huma Agahi, was attacked by unknown arsonist(s). A number of Molotov cocktails were thrown into the front courtyard of the house apparently aimed at the vehicle parked there. Family members heard the explosions and were able to extinguish the flames before any serious damage ensued.
Dr. Huma Agahi had begun receiving threats at her medical clinic from unknown individuals in September 2007 and that the situation had become so extreme over the subsequent months that in February 2008 she had finally been forced to close down her clinic in Najafabad in which she had been practicing for more than twenty-eight years. She had only been in her new premises for about a month when the threats began again. They subsided some time not long after that and there had been no further reports of harassment until this most recent incident involving her home.
Attacks in the Media
The Iranian news channel IRINN aired a new series in May and June 2008 titled "The Secret of Armageddon". The program is presented as a documentary in which a number of Iranian scholars, historians, researchers, and academicians criticize Christian Zionists, affirm the existence of the so-called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (a document that purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy aimed at world domination) and allege that Iranian Jewish and Baha'i communities are plotting to take over Iran. The Bahá’ís are portrayed as agents of Zionism who are striving to destroy Islam and annihilate all Muslims.
On 20 July 2008, the government-backed daily newspaper, Kayhan, published the first in what promises to be a new series against the Faith. This article consists of excerpts from a newly published anti-Bahá’í book written by Mr. Saeid Sajadi, based on the alleged memoirs of Mr.Behzad Jahangiri (the ex-husband of Ms. Mahnaz Raoufi) entitled “Reminiscences of a former member of the Baha’ist sect” The first article alleges that Bahá’ís deify Bahá’u’lláh and worship Him in place of God. The article goes on to relate some childhood stories from Mr. Jahangiri’s alleged memoirs in which the Bahá’í children are indoctrinated with misleading ideas such as Bahá’u’lláh being God and Muslims being enemies of the Bahá’ís, this allegedly occurring at the Bahá’í children’s classes. The article describes Mr.Jahangiri’s Bahá’í father as an impoverished alcoholic, unable to maintain a job and thus despised by the rich members of the local Bahá’í governing body. (http://www.kayhannews.ir/870430/8.htm)
IRNA quoting “an informed source”, reported on 6 August 2008 that “the daughter of Shirin Ebadi has converted to the seditious sect of Baha’ism since a year ago, and now Mrs. Ebadi is trying, with claims that her life is in danger, to get further help from the West for herself and her daughter”. In an interview with the reformist newspaper Kargozaran, Ms. Ebadi denied the rumours, insisted that she and her daughter are Shi’ites and said that the allegations were probably made to try to prevent her from defending the Bahá’ís in court, lest the case attract international attention.
For further information please contact:
Susanne Tamás, Director,
Office of Governmental Relations, Bahá’í Community of Canada
613 233 3712 bccottaw@ican.net