Wall Street Journal: Iran's Persecution of the Bahai

By WAHIED WAHDAT-HAGH

For more than two years, seven Bahai leaders have been imprisoned in Iran's notorious Evin Prison in northwestern Tehran. After a series of show trials which concluded on June 14, the so-called Iranian "court" is expected to rule shortly against Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm who stand accused of, amongst other things, "espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic." Although the charges are completely unfounded, all seven could soon face the death penalty.

Several of the advocates for the accused spoke out recently in a rare interview, published in the Deutsche Welle Farsi. Lawyers Mahnas Parakande and Abdollah Soltani stated that there is no evidence that could legitimately support a ruling against the Bahai Seven. Dr. Hadi Ismaelsadeh, a colleague of Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, affirmed that the prosecutors simply "couldn't find any documents which would prove the rightness of these accusations".

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a nation rife with tragic stories of human rights violations and persecution. No case is more severe than that of the Bahai; a faith-based community, entrenched in the modern history of Iran, that is facing a most dire and questionable future.

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Bahai News Service

The Bahai Seven (from left to right): Fariba Kamalabadi, Vahid Tizfahm, Behrouz Tavakkoli (seated), Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie (seated) and Mahvash Sabet.

Founded in the mid-19th century, the Bahai faith aims to promote peace and unity among mankind. They believe in one God, whose will has been revealed on earth by a long line of divine messengers; the Bahai believe these include Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha. Baha'u'llah, an Iranian nobleman and the founder of the Bahai faith, is thought to be the most recent. While the messengers are seen chiefly as the founders of separate religious systems, the Bahai see them as being united by a common purpose—to bring the human race to a spiritual and moral maturity.

The story of this peace-promoting religion is marred by the violence inflicted upon its followers at the hands of the several dynasties and regimes that have ruled Iran over the last 150 years. For example, historian E.G. Browne estimates that nearly 20,000 Babi (as they were then known) were killed in a series of pogroms in the late 1800s. And during the Pahlavi dynasty of the mid 1900s, the Shah frequently backed the anti-Bahai movement in an effort to garner clerical support for his foreign and domestic policies.

The Bahai are seen in the eyes of Iran's current Shiite rulers, installed by the Islamic Revolution of 1979, as little more than a heretical manifestation that refuses to recognize Mohammed as the last prophet. More than 200 Iranian Bahai have been killed since 1979, nearly 1,000 have been arrested, and more face daily economic and religious discrimination.

The treatment of the Bahai by the current clerical government in Iran is more sinister and complex than a basic lack of religious tolerance: It is an organized, and systematic, and well-documented repression aimed at eliminating the community from the annals of Iranian history.

In 1991 for instance, the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council laid out a plan to restrict the education, employment, and cultural status of anyone who identifies publicly as a Bahai, and to block the development of the community as a whole. The plan was endorsed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Other documents include a 2007 letter, sent to police forces throughout Iran, calling for the establishment of a ban on work permits for the Bahai in "sensitive business categories," including the tourism industry, the press, and commerce.

The intention is clear: The Iranian regime seeks to isolate and strangle the Bahai community until its existence is no longer viable.

Iran justifies its systematic persecution of the Bahai through a series of conspiracy theories that recall familiar anti-Semitic themes and are fuelled by the Bahai having chosen Israel for their spiritual and administrative base. The Bahai have been accused of being foreign agents for the Mossad, the KGB, the CIA and MI6 to name but a few. They are held responsible for most immoral behavior in Iran—most notably prostitution and adultery which are capital offences punishable by stoning. And the economic crisis? That's their fault too.

The Iranian government's treatment of the Bahai is perhaps unsurprising when you consider that they preach non-involvement in partisan politics; while Iran is governed by a regime that regularly involves itself in the affairs of its neighbors. While the Bahai seek world peace, by teaching unity and relativity of religious truth, Iran advocates jihad. One goal of the Bahai is to ensure that women have as fully equal opportunities as men; contrast that to the Islamic Republic's forced veiling of females.

This community of 300,000 in a nation of over 70 million has consistently been the target of severe repression, a record that has led a group of Iranian intellectuals to proclaim in an open letter in February 2009: "As Iranian human beings, we are ashamed."

The fate of the Bahai Seven, who now await sentencing, will have implications not just within the Bahai community but for Iranian society as a whole. Failure to defend the rights of the Bahai now will only further empower Iran's totalitarian leadership, and leave the future of the Bahai and of Iranian freedom in even greater doubt, because they are indivisible.

Mr. Wahdat-Hagh, an Iranian-German Bahai, is a senior fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels.