Michael J. Totten

December 9, 2010 – by Michael J. Totten

Iran’s most repressed religious minority is also its largest. Members of the community are routinely imprisoned, frequently executed, banned from universities, and ruthlessly repressed economically. Tens of thousands have been murdered by one regime after another. The current government—the Khomeinist “Islamic Republic”—goes farther than any other by vowing to crush these people wherever they live and erase them from the face of the earth.

There are only six or seven million in the entire world, and their spiritual home is in Israel. I am not, however, referring here to the Jews, but to the Bahais.

The Bahai gardens in Haifa, Israel

[In the picture used on the right, the Shrine of the Bab is coverd for maintenance work. please see this picture for the Baha'i Gardens with the golden dome of the Shrine of the Bab]

Their world headquarters is in Israel, and they came during Ottoman times from Persian lands. The nation-state of one of the world’s oldest religions now hosts the holiest site of one of the newest, and the nation where the Bahai Faith was born vows to destroy the nation where the Bahai Faith had to migrate.

The strikingly different treatments of these people by Iran and by Israel infuses the looming showdown between the Middle East’s two most powerful countries with even more moral clarity than it already had.

The U.S. State Department rates Iran one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world, particularly for its repression against the Bahais. “Bahai religious groups reported arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention,” says its most recent annual report, “expulsions from universities, and confiscation of property. During the reporting period government-controlled broadcast and print media intensified negative campaigns against religious minorities, particularly the Bahais.” Even the United National General Assembly recently condemned the Iranian government on similar grounds.

Around 300,000 Bahais are still in Iran, ten times the number of Christians and Jews there. Two million or so live in India. There are many more in South America and Africa. Only 150,000 or so live in the U.S., but the faith has been growing in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Most worship in their houses, but there are community centers in places where enough Bahais are concentrated. There’s a house of worship on each continent. North America’s is in Chicago. South America’s is in Chile. Asia’s is in Delhi.

The Bahai house of worship in Chicago, Illinois

But the world spiritual center for the Bahai faith–its “Jerusalem,” so to speak–is in Israel on the slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa. Rob Weinberg gave me a tour. He’s a Bahai from the UK and has been serving there since late fall in 2009. And he told me the story of how his faith began in Persia in the middle of the 19th century.

“It was a time of great expectation,” he said, “when the Muslims were awaiting the coming of a promised great teacher. Also, in the Christian world, in the West, there were expectations about the return of Christ. There was a great deal of ferment.”

Rob Weinberg

In 1844 a young man named Mirza Ali Muhammad, a merchant in the city of the Iranian city of Shiraz, said he was the herald of a new revelation from God. He announced the coming of the new great teacher.

“He called himself the Báb,” Weinberg said, “which means ‘the gate’ in Arabic, and his teachings began to spread throughout Persia. Thousands upon thousands of people responded and were very attracted to the teaching. He said a new day had come, a day when religions would become united, when people would recognize their oneness, when the equality of men and women would be established.”

One of his first followers was a poet who removed her veil in public, something unheard of in that day, though it was perfectly normal before the Khomeinists took over in 1979. “There were reports of a man cutting his throat,” Weinberg said, “because he was so shocked at the audacity of this act.”

This new religion alarmed the authorities as it spread. Shia Muslims were abandoning Islam and becoming Bábis, followers of the Báb. Pogroms followed, and 20,000 were executed, many in horrible ways. They were executed not because they were criminals, nor for political reasons. They were executed because they were heretics. The Báb himself was publicly executed in 1850 in Tabriz.

Tabriz is an Azeri city. In Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan—the now-sovereign Azeri land detached long ago from the Persian Empire by Czarist Russia—is a statue of a liberated woman discarding her veil. It was erected almost a century ago, and the liberation has held.

The statue of the liberated woman, Baku, Azerbaijan

I spent a week in Azerbaijan and saw only three or four veiled women during my entire stay. Hardly any man there finds unveiled women shocking or scandalous, certainly not enough to cut his own throat over it. There are no more veiled women in Azerbaijan than there are in Seattle. The government, though, isn’t run by totalitarian mullahs. The local Bahais, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians are left alone.

“The main message from the Báb,” Weinberg said, “was that there was about to be a great teacher. Among the Báb’s most prominent followers was a nobleman whose name was Mirza Hussein Ali. His was the son of a courtier in the Shah’s court, and in 1852 he was imprisoned for being a follower of the Báb. He was in an underground dungeon in Tehran, the place where the worst criminals were thrown and left to die. And there he had an extraordinary revelation where he realized he was the one that the Báb had foretold. And for the next forty years, the Báb’s teachings came through him. He was channeling all these ideas about world order, global civilization, equality, the unity of mankind, how to organize human affairs–things to do with personal spirituality, but also justice, social organization, and so on.”

He took the name Bahaullah, which means glory of God. And because of his high rank in the Shah’s court, he was banished rather than executed. He lived in Baghdad for ten years before moving on to Ottoman Turkey and Bulgaria. And in 1868 he was banished to Acre, the now-Israeli city of Akko, and imprisoned there.

“]

[Baha'u'llah was exiled by the Persian and Ottoman empires

Haifa, Israel, with Akko (Acre) in the background

“They kept him in the citadel for two and a half years,” Weinberg said, “but as people started to realize that the Bahai were good, honest, peace-loving people, restrictions on them were lifted and they were free to travel in the area. Bahaullah passed away in 1892.”

Acre, or Akko, is just north of Haifa. The cities are within each others’ sight lines. Bahaullah could see Haifa and Mount Carmel across the bay from the prison, and he traveled there after he was released.

Ottoman-era prison in Akko (Acre), Israel

He wanted Mount Carmel to become the spiritual seat and administrative center for the Bahai Faith, and he wanted the Báb’s remains secretly smuggled out of Persia and buried in a shrine on the side of the mountain. That’s exactly what happened sixty years later, and Mount Carmel has been the center of the Bahai world ever since.

The first building constructed there was for the archives. “It’s a copy of the Parthenon in Athens,” Weinberg said. “The idea was to find an architectural style that would be beautiful for thousands of years. They assumed that since the Parthenon has been considered beautiful for thousands of years, it would likely be considered beautiful for thousands more.”

The Bahai archive building

.

The Bahai archive building

The Bahai Faith is a modern religion with neither clergy nor rituals. It is administered by officials elected every five years. They believe in non-violence and the brotherhood of mankind. You’d have to be a real bastard to be seriously offended by them, and some kind of a fascist to think they deserve to be persecuted.

“The fundamental teaching of the Bahai Faith is that there is one god and that he is completely unknowable,” Weinberg said. “We are limited in our understanding, so throughout our history humanity has been guided by it’s a succession of great teachers. When we look through history we have, every thousand years or so, extraordinary figures like Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Krishna, and so on. They bring a message, they bring teachings, and their teachings become universal and give rise to new civilizations. So there is essentially one religion. There aren’t all these religions in competition with each other for everyone’s soul. There is one religion, and it has been progressively revealed to humanity throughout history through these great teachers.”

If you want to convert, it isn’t difficult.

“If you want to become a Bahai,” he said, “all you’re doing in a sense is making an internal recognition that there is one god, there is one human race, there is really only one religion that has been taught through the ages by different teachers, and that Bahaullah is the latest of these great teachers. There’s no ritual or baptism or anything like that.”

“]

[Interior of the Office of Public Information, Baha'i World Centre, Haifa

“Ever since the time of the Báb,” he said, “the Bahais in Iran have been persecuted.”

“Even under the secular shahs?” I said.

“Less so then, but, yes,” he said. “At different points in history the shahs wanted to appease the mullahs, so from time to time he would allow them to do stuff to the Bahais.”

“‘Stuff’ meaning what, exactly?” I said.

“Their cemeteries were demolished. Gangs were let loose on Bahais in the streets. People were killed. Bahais have always been slandered. Bahai school kids have been told they’re unclean.’

“It sounds like Bahais have been treated worse than Jews in Iran,” I said.

“In Iran,” he said, “I would say so, yes.”

“Is that because Christians and Jews are considered People of the Book by Muslims while Bahais are not?”

“Bahais are also People of the Book,” he said, “because we consider the Bahai revelation following the same line as the Abrahamic faiths.”

“But Bahais aren’t named by Islam as People of the Book,” I said.

“Because we came after the Koran,” he said. “We came after Mohammad. The traditional interpretation says he was the last prophet, that there can’t be any after him. So when the Báb and Bahaullah come along and say they’re being divinely inspired and guided it becomes a big theological issue. Since 1979 it has been the official government policy to blacklist and persecute the Bahais. Over 200 Bahais were executed under Khomeini in the early years after the revolution.”

Iran’s Khomeinists treat everyone badly, even liberal and moderate Shia clerics who refuse to toe the regime line, but only Jews and Bahais are singled out for destruction outside Iran.

“In 1991 the Supreme Leader Khamenei,” Weinberg said, “who is still the supreme leader, commissioned a memorandum which deals with the Bahai question. It says Bahais must be blocked from progressing in careers and social life. Employees who reveal that they’re Bahais should be dismissed from their jobs. School children should be dismissed from schools. Bahais should be banned from universities. They should be kept at the lowest levels of subsistence and earning. And more ominously, it also says Bahais should be rooted out around the world, that their culture should be destroyed. It’s a formal government policy to eliminate every trace of the Bahai Faith and the Bahai community everywhere in the world.”

“Not just in Iran,” I said.

“Not just in Iran,” he said. “This document says the Bahai community should be destroyed around the world. They’ve been trying to enact this policy, and in the early days of the revolution they were executing Bahais and imprisoning them. Bahais were disappearing, never to be seen again. There was a huge outcry. The Bahai Faith has spread all over the world. There are Bahais in every country, and various governments around the world will stand up and speak out for the human rights of the Bahais. There was such an outcry that Iran realized it couldn’t get away with it. So instead they’ve been applying a slow strangulation which is still going on today. Cemeteries are still being destroyed. People are still losing their jobs. Students still are not allowed to study. Bahais are picked up, arrested, and imprisoned, and only released on bail if they put up the deeds to their properties.”

Israel’s relationship with the Bahais could not be more different. Few Bahais live there, but that’s not because of pogroms, state-sponsored repression, or bigoted attitudes from Israelis or Arabs. The Bahais just decided–before the modern Israeli state even existed–not to promote themselves there.

Haifa's German Colony from the Bahai gardens. The shrine of the Báb (lower right) was covered when I was there.

“This goes back to the time of Bahaullah himself,” Weinberg said. “He said the faith shouldn’t be taught in this area.”

“Why is that?” I said.

“I think there’s wisdom in it,” he said and laughed.

“It was a political decision?” I said.

“I can’t speak for Bahaullah,” he said and laughed again.

“You have a lot better sense of what he was thinking than I do,” I said.

Here's a public domain photograph of the Báb's shrine

“He was probably aware of the sensitivity of this land,” he said, “the political factions, religious tensions, and all the rest of it. I think that out of respect and out of safety it was considered the wisest thing to just have our holy places and world center here without making any attempt to teach or promote the faith here. If people want to know about it they can come here. They can see the gardens. They can go on the Internet. They can read books. They can go to the library. But there is no Bahai community as such in Israel. We do, however, have a relationship with the city of Haifa, the municipality. All our buildings and developments are done properly and legally with the city.”

The Bahai center

“Is there any tension?” I said.

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said and laughed a third time. The idea of tension between Bahais and Israelis is a little ridiculous, but I had to ask just to be sure.

“Was there any tension with the British or Ottoman authorities after this place was established?” I said.

“The Bahais were initially prisoners, of course, under the Ottoman authorities,” he said. “Bahaullah’s son was still a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire until the Young Turks revolution set political and religious prisoners free in 1908. Between 1914 and 1918 their lives were in danger because the Ottoman pasha in Palestine threatened to have Bahaullah’s son executed, but the Ottomans were driven out by the British. After the First World War during the British Mandate, Bahaullah’s son knew there was going to be a famine, so he encouraged Bahai landowners around the Galilee to store grain. He fed a lot of people in this area during the First World War, and when the British came in they gave him a knighthood for his service to the people of Palestine. So the Bahai’s relationship with the British was fine. And the Bahai’s relationship with the State of Israel is fine, as well.”

We walked the grounds of the gardens. It’s an extraordinary place, and I said so.

The Bahai gardens from below

“It is very beautiful,” he said. “People ask questions about what’s symbolic, but it’s really just about beauty. It’s about creating a beautiful environment so that the pilgrims who come can prepare themselves for the shrine. The number nine is repeated in some of the designs. In the original Arabic numerology, Baha equals nine, and it means glory.”

The Bahai gardens

I was tempted to ask him what he thought his Israeli hosts should do about the Iranian regime that threatens them both, but it did not seem appropriate.

“We’re not political,” he said. “We don’t get involved with political discussions or disputes. Bahais everywhere in the world obey the laws of the land in which they live, so naturally we’ve never had any problems with the British or the Israelis.”

The Iranian government’s stated goal of destroying the Bahai Faith everywhere in the world is, of course, impossible, but an apocalyptic war with Israel would, conveniently from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s point of view, destroy the holiest sites of both the Jews and the Bahais. I don’t expect anything of the sort will ever actually happen, but it would be a mistake, I believe, to assume that it can’t. A repressive regime with eliminationist ambitions toward even one, let alone two, religious communities would be ferociously dangerous indeed if it possessed the weapons of genocide.

“All of these things are intertwined,” said Shastri Purushotma, the human rights representative for the U.S. Bahai community. “You can’t separate out human rights and the nuclear issue, because the way a country treats his own people is an indication of how they will treat their neighbors.”

******

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The Editor
Iran Press Watch]

by Hamed Saburi (15 Sep 2010)

The Cult scenario is a new trick by anti-Baha’i theoreticians of the Islamic Republic in Iran, intended to justify the past 32 years of atrocities against Baha’is and to create a legal rationale for future atrocities. For example, in passing 20-year sentences against the seven [former] leaders of the Baha’i community [editor's note: now commuted to 10 years], instead of acknowledging that they were prisoners of faith, they were branded by baseless accusations of “cult” activities against national security, spying and opposition to Islam, in order to justify the regime’s own atrocity.

Sayyed Kazim Moosavi, the expert activist against(!) the Baha’i faith, further revealed this scenario in an interview entitled “Baha’ism was involved in the Ashura 88 events” (1), by repeating his earlier falsehoods and calumnies (2) which had been repeatedly refuted by the Baha’is (3). The goal of this scenario is the justification and legality of the repression of Iranian Baha’is. This is the same scenario presented by Mohammad Javad Larijani in Geneva against the Baha’is (4) [at a February meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, to which Larijani is the Iranian delegate]. Using the space of the Western dialogue about the difference between the concept of official religious “sects” versus unofficial “cults” (5), some of which are despised and considered dangerous and illegal, he declared the past 32 years of repression and deprivation in the Islamic Republic against Baha’is to be a consequence of the “cult-like” activities of the Baha’is, rather than accepting that they were belief-based. (6)

Now, Mr Moosavi, who like Mr Larijani is among the theoreticians attempting to justify repression against Baha’is, says:

“Today, in the political language of the West the word ’sect’ is used for a branch of a religion and ‘cult’ is used for a following. In the Oxford dictionary, the word ‘cult’ is used for those who are enamoured of and are loyal to an individual. This word entered Western literature in the ’60s. At any rate, today we are facing a cult phenomenon in our country… I must say that up until the time of Shoghi [Effendi, the Head of the Baha'i Faith from 1921 to 1957], Bahaism was a ’sect’, but we saw that during Shoghi’s time it gradually changed into a cult. During this time, Baha’ism entered a period of serious administrative circles and set up a destructive organization.” (7)

But this trick and the new approach of the likes of Larijani and Moosavi has not only been unable to justify their systematic oppression of Baha’is over the past 32 years, it has also confronted them with contradictions and admissions that reveal the falsity of their earlier lies and claims about Baha’is, as well as showing the hollowness of their new scenario.

Among the contradictions, one is that for the past 167 years the likes of Mr Moosavi have portrayed the Baha’i faith as a misguided sect of Islam. Yet now, in a complete about-face, in order to prove their new scenario of showing the Baha’i faith as a ‘cult’, they have been forced to say that “the Baha’i sect is also one of the non-Islamic sects because they essentially have no belief in Islam” (8); whereas actually the Baha’i faith is neither a sect nor a cult but a religion. Baha’is, as testified in their holy books, are the only religious group apart from Muslims themselves who accept Islam as a religion (9). The interesting point is that he says “…during Shoghi’s time, we saw Baha’ism gradually changing into a cult”. Even if we were to accept Mr Moosavi’s fantasies, according to the definitions of the political language of the West that he uses, some cults become sects if they prevail, not the reverse. (10)

In another place, based on his assertion about the Baha’i community being a cult because it has an administration, Mr Moosavi makes a strange admission which is of interest to Iranian and international human rights organizations:

“Although there are several centers for dealing with and confronting these phenomena, only the security element has succeeded fairly well. However, confrontation by the security element alone is no longer effective, and unfortunately we have acted very weakly in the cultural arena.” Moosavi called the legal vacuum one of the main reasons for not seriously confronting deviant sects and added: “…apart from clarifying and disseminating information, the only effective approach in dealing with the Baha’i sect is to cut off the connection between the Baha’i administration and the Baha’i community.” (11)

Another admission related to the “legal vacuum”, that reveals the “cult scenario” of his kind and of Mr Larijani as a basis on which to legalize the repression and deprivation heaped upon Iranian Baha’is is his statement in the 29 April 1989 closed session of “Reviewing the issues on Irfan and semi-religious elements”, conducted by the Strategic Research Center of the regime’s Circle for Determining Propriety:

“Bearing in mind that in neighbouring countries like Pakistan and India there are laws against sects/cults which we lack it in our country, and so are deprived of their benefit, we see that in serious cases a judge needs a fatwa [religious ruling] from [religious] authorities.” (12)

His admission means that it has now been 32 years during which Shi’a sources and judges in the Islamic Republic have illegally been heaping all kinds of repression on Baha’is while lacking “anti-sect laws”! Now, in the new scenario, imitating the West and countries like India and Pakistan, they intend to portray the Baha’i religion as a “cult” and “legalize” repression and cruelty against Baha’is. For 32 years they have repressed illegally(!); now that the world has become aware of their cruelty toward Baha’is – as well as the noble people of Iran – they want to legalize the cruelty! Having failed in their plan to eradicate Baha’is by castigating them as “the misguided sect”, they now try to eradicate Baha’is from history by portraying them as a cult.

Please note the following:

“This expert on Baha’ism, highlighting the Baha’i sect’s administration, identifies an effective way of confronting it — a break between the Baha’i community and its administration. At this juncture it is the administration of the Baha’is that threatens the regime; if the administration is removed from the community, the sect will be history.” (13)

The question that needs to be asked is if, as he says, “Baha’ism” (14) developed its administration during Shoghi Effendi’s time, and changed into a “cult”, and the reason for not “becoming history” was the existence of the administration, then why during the preceding seventy-seven years (1844 to 1921) was it that the same community — without an administration and in spite of 20,000 of them being killed, with many thousands in jail and under torture, and facing large amounts of anti-Baha’i propaganda, along with other pressures and deprivations — not only survived, but actually bloomed, thundered on proudly and took on the task of building the administration which still survives in spite of all the repression, but has NOT been removed from the pages of history?!

For Mr Moosavi’s better understanding, we should also add that during the 29 months during which you have cruelly thrown in jail the innocent seven leaders of the Baha’i community and dozens of others, who attended to the affairs of the Iranian Baha’i community in the absence of the usual Baha’i administration of the community, did you not notice the clamor with which leading Iranians arose to defend their Baha’i fellow citizens?! For instance, did you not see the “We are Ashamed” statement?! (15) Are you still not aware that the primary and total reason for the continuation of the lively Baha’i community is not its administration but the penetrative power of the force of the divine Words of His Holiness Bah’u'llah? It is this divine force which flows in the New World Order and in the Baha’i administrative system, which in the fullness of time, and with the cooperation of all world citizens, will establish global peace and the unity of humanity on earth.

Alas! that the likes of Mr Moosavi, motivated by their hate, have forgotten that, contrary to other religious communities, the Baha’i spiritual administrative system did not come from the minds of ulama [Islamic clerics] or outstanding personalities, but emanated from the pen of Baha’u'llah Himself, and are contained in His Writings. They are not the kind of administrative structures that are imagined in Mr Moosavi’s mind (16). This administration and the Baha’i community have for decades been officially recognized — by the United Nations, by Western countries, and even by the India and Pakistan which Mr Moosavi identifies as having anti-cult laws — not only as a religious community, but also praised for its useful and constructive force for morality, cultural and social activities in areas such as human rights, education, equality of rights beween women and men, world peace, unity of the human race and socio-economic development at the national and international level. (17)

The likes of Mr Larijani and Mr. Moosavi, faced with world opinion, are attempting to justify and operationalize the eradication and gradual repression of Iranian Baha’is with the same trickery that the tribe of Qoraish utilized with the king of Ethiopia against Ja’far and the Muslim refugees (18) [editor's note: this is a reference to opponents of Islam in its early days]. In front of the United Nations and world human rights tribunals, they refer to anti-cult laws in the West, in India and Pakistan, yet they deliberately ignore the views, acknowledgements, praise and official recognition [of the Baha'i religion] of these same sources and governments, that see Baha’is as members of a “religion” and not a “cult”.

For instance, the Supreme Court of Germany has decreed: “The nature of the Baha’i cause as a religion, and the Baha’i community as a religious community, is evident and without a doubt — whether in its daily life or in its cultural tradition, in the public perception or in the science of comparative religions.” (19)  With respect to India, it is enough to know that Mahatma Ghandi, in contrast to the political and religious leaders of the Islamic Republic, stated that “Belief in Baha’ism is soothing to the world of humanity” (20); that a group of thinkers in India has recently issued a statement opposing the 20 year sentence of the seven Baha’i leaders who are incarcerated in Raja’i prison (21). For years the government of India has officially recognized the Baha’i religion; Baha’is have innumerable socio-economic projects aimed at the betterment of the material and spiritual conditions of the nation, and that the government of India has praised and thanked them, instead of throwing them in jail for three years, as Iran did to three youth in Shiraz who had undertaken similar projects (22). As for Pakistan, it is enough to know that Professor Mohammad Lahouri, a Muslim, says “All the lines and evolution of diverse thought in Iran is once again seen as a complete compilation in a great religious movement of the new Iran, i.e. the Babi and Baha’i religion.” (23)   It is not necessary to remind the likes of Larijani and Moosavi, who are anti-Baha’i “experts”, of the Baha’i faith’s official recognition by the United Nations as a religious and non-political body since 1949, and of the many declarations of that agency in defense of Baha’is in Iran. (24)

Having said the above, no doubt Mr Larijani and Mr Moosavi and their like — who have seen the uselessness of the results of their plans, scenarios, projects and anti-Baha’i activities of the past during both the Qajar and Pahlavi periods — must know that the “Cult scenario” will also have no lasting effects in eradicating and repressing the Baha’is, and that the Baha’i community of Iran will remain steadfast and erect as it has for the past 167 years (25); that it will serve both beloved Iran and noble lranians who have often been the supporters of their Baha’i fellow citizens, for:

“They have no aim save their Beloved, they seek no perfection save attaining His presence. They soar on the wings of reliance [on God] and fly, remaining confident on Him. The bloodstained sword to them is preferable to heavenly silk, and the piercing dart more pleasant than mother’s milk… Adversity doth not overtake them, and this voyage is not traversed by feet, nor is this Face to be covered as by a veil.” (26) [from the Writings of Baha'u'llah]

Endnotes and References:

(1) http://www.sanayenews.com/content/view/24085/78
(2) http://bahaism-news.blogfa.com/post-41.aspx
http://www.tabnak.ir/fa/pages/?cid=113356
http://www.adyannews.com/114/1848-news.html
http://www.javanonline.ir/Nsite/FullStory/?Id=307004
http://www.adyan.net/114/2063-news.html
http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8702300482
http://www.hawzah.net/Hawzah/Magazines/MagArt.aspx?MagazineNumberID=7151…
http://www.iqna.ir/fa/news_detail.php?ProdID=583438
http://www.javanonline.ir/Nsite/FullStory/?Id=306544
http://www.saharnews.ir/view-12411.html
(3) See answers to his untrue comments: notes 1 and 2 of NoghteNazar site below, also see Negah and Veleveledarshahr in the links below:

http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/114/46/
http://www.ketabhayebahai5.info/kankashi-dar-bahai-setizi
http://www.bahai-projects95.info/taxonomy/t/16
http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/138/37/
http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/138/37/
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/610
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/854
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/746
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/499
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/683

Mr. Musavi’s strange behavour includes his changes to the text of the messages from the Universal House of Justice . To compare his changes with the originals see the links below and his lies will be evident.
http://www.universal-house-of-justice-messages5.info/
http://noghtenazar5.info/taxonomy/term/39
(4) “Bahais have to answer to the courts in Iran because they engaged in cult-type activities contrary to the the most basic human rights of the people,” Mr Larijani told the UN Human Rights Council.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10494631
http://www.human-rights-iran.org/view.php?objnr=1262
(5) for example see:  http://www.adyannews.com/156/1356-news.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cults_and_governments
http://www.skepticfiles.org/xhate/csdm.htm

(6) Regarding The Baha’i Faith being a religion and not a cult or sect, see Mr. Behrooz Sabet’s article in response to Mr. Larijani’s claim: http://www.negah5.info/quotes/quotes/2010-02-21-19-10-59 and also see: http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/109/

(7) http://www.sanayenews.com/content/view/24085/78
(8) http://www.sanayenews.com/content/view/24085/78
(9) http://aeenebahai5.info/node/505
(10) http://www.adyannews.com/156/1356-news.html

(11) http://www.rahva.ir/104/11118-89.html
(12) http://gozashtehalayande.blogfa.com/post-77.aspx
(13) http://gozashtehalayande.blogfa.com/post-77.aspx

The separating the Baha’i Community from its Administration has been in the plan of the anti-Bahai theoreticians of the Islamic Republic of Iran for many years and continues to-date. See the published book, “Dawning of Love” (Tolu-i Ishq): http://www.ketabhayebahai5.info/tolooi-eshgh

Also, the goal of extermination of the Baha’i Community has been around for the last 167 years, see: http://noghtenazar5.info/node/588

(14) The name Baha’u'llah means The Glory of God. The religion established by Baha’u'llah is referred to as the Baha’i Faith, or the Baha’i Cause, or the Baha’i Religion. The use of the term “Baha’ism” is incorrect. http://bahaullah.persian-bahai.org/notes/

(15) http://www.we-are-ashamed.com/pages/languages/fars6cc.php and  http://news.persian-bahai0.info/ and
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/479

(16) For references on “the Bahai Administration” see the following links:
http://noghtenazar5.info/node/443
http://www.aeenebahai95.info/taxonomy/t/169
http://www.ketabhayebahai5.info/negahi-tazeh
http://www.bahai-projects95.info/taxonomy/t/369
http://www.bahai-projects95.info/taxonomy/t/455
http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/156/37/
http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/157/37/
http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/158/37/

And also, see the book “The Baha’i World Order” here:  http://reference.persian-bahai0.info/fa/t/alpha.html

(17) http://www.aeenebahai95.info/node/2073
http://www.aeenebahai95.info/taxonomy/t/17
http://www.ketabhayebahai5.info/negahi-tazeh
http://www.bahai-projects95.info/taxonomy/t/369

(18) http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/138/37/

(19) Statement named “The Century of Light” p. 105 [Editor: this page refers to the Persian publication]. Germany is one of the countries that has laws on cults. http://www.adyannews.com/156/1356-news.html

(20) http://aeenebahai95.info/node/262
(21) http://news.bahai.org/sites/news.bahai.org/files/documentlibrary/iu_indiaOpenLetter.pdf
(22) http://www.bahai.org/persian/persecution/newsreleases/06-02-08
(23) http://aeenebahai95.info/node/60
(24) http://aeenebahai95.info/node/264
http://www.agahee.org/taxonomy/t/39
http://news.persian-bahai.org/yaran-special-report-un-statements

(25) With regards, please read the message of the Universal House of Justice to the Baha’is in Iran regarding Iran and Iranians, dated 26 November 2009: http://www.velvelehdarshahr5.info/content/view/114/46/ [Editor: the message is in Persian].
(26) Baha’u'llah, in one of his Works named Shikar-Shikar Shavand [Editor: the translation of this passage in this article is by Iran Press Watch and provisional for use of this article only].

—
Translation By Iran Press Watch
Source: http://www.iranpresswatch.org/fa/post/1219 and http://noghtenazar5.info/node/948 and http://news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2010/09/110319.php

Payam Akhavan, LL.B., LL.M, S.J.D. (Professor, McGill University Faculty of Law): Payam Akhavan is Professor of International Law at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He earned his Doctorate from Harvard Law School and was previously Senior Fellow at Yale Law School and Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of Toronto. He is the author of numerous publications and his 2001 article "Beyond Impunity" in the American Journal of International Law has been recognized as one of “the most significant published journal essays in contemporary legal studies.”

See http://www.iranhrdc.org/httpdocs/English/boardmembers.htm]

The Baha’i Community, Human Rights, and the Construction of a New Iranian Identity
A Lecture by Dr. Payam Akhavan in Chicago

February 24th, 2010

Human rights and Iranian identity

What does it mean to be Iranian? What does it mean to be a human being? These are the questions confronting theIranian

people at this crucial juncture in their long history. In the incredible and unforgettable scenes that have unfolded in the streets of Tehran, and Isfahan, and Shiraz, and Tabriz, and Mashhad, and Ahvaz, and every other city and town in Iran, we are witnessing a struggle far greater than a mere political contest between different presidential candidates. We are witnessing a struggle for the soul of the nation; a struggle to build a new identity for the Iranian people. The encounter between the protestors and their tormentors is an encounter between the dark past and the bright future. It is an encounter between violence and non-violence, between the courage of those that are willing to sacrifice their lives for justice, and the cowardice of those that savagely beat and murder the defenseless. It is an encounter between the best and worst potentials inherent in humankind.

The millions marching in the streets, youth and women, student and labour movements, intellectuals and artists, web-loggers and journalists, a social movement of unprecedented unity and resolve, have demonstrated that without legitimacy there can be no lasting power. They have demonstrated vividly the deeper meaning of the words democracy, human rights, and the rule of law; words that we throw about loosely in our world without always appreciating the price that must be paid for its attainment. The power of their demands lies in its simplicity. The Iranian people are asking whether the God that we all worship and all that we hold sacred, whether the dreams and aspirations that we have for our children, they are asking whether these do not demand that those in power treat their citizens with justice and equality? They ask why the hope of our youth in the future should be extinguished, why our mothers and sisters should be treated with such disrespect in our laws, why our workers should live in such poverty amidst our national wealth, and why a utopian ideology that has long promised both freedom and prosperity has achieved neither?

For the people of Iran, democracy and human rights are not intellectual abstractions. Freedom and tolerance are not about idle theological disputes. For them, these are existential needs in the face of a daily onslaught of violence, deception, corruption, and hatred. For them, these demands go to the very meaning of what it means to be Iranian and what it means to be a human being. What they seek simply is an Iranian nation where every citizen enjoys fundamental human rights.

Justice, equality, solidarity, a culture where religion gives people spiritual fulfillment rather than serving as a pretext for abuse of power, in struggling for this vision of what it means to be Iranian, the countless youth that have stood firm in the face of savage beatings, murders, and torture, speak to a deeper yearning within us all. Through their sacrifices they bring to life the words of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

After thousands of years of historical evolution, through countless wars and revolutions and ideologies, humankind has arrived at the realization that the foundation of civilization and progress is recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings. That dignity is not premised on whether we belong to an approved religion or race or political ideology or social class. It is part of what it means to be and to treat others as a human being. On the bloodstained pages of contemporary history, from Nazi Germany and Cambodia to Yugoslavia and Rwanda, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Uganda and the Sudan, we witness the devastating consequences of disregarding our shared humanity. The case is no different for the thousands of our fellow Iranians, be they religious or secular, Muslim or Baha’i, Azeri, Kurdish or Baluch, republican or socialist, man and woman, whose rights have been trampled upon merely because of who they are and what they believe. In the name of Islam, in the name of the divine, those that have arrogated to themselves the right to speak on behalf of God, have murdered and tortured countless sons and daughters of this long-suffering nation. They have corrupted the spiritual longing of its people with the profane lust of wealth and power. The poor in whose name they spoke have become ever more wretched amidst the unprecedented oil wealth of the country. And the end to injustice they promised has brought stoning and hanging of “infidels” and “the corrupt on earth” and “the enemies of God”, defined as anybody who dares to challenge the absolute power of self-proclaimed leaders. Women are forcibly veiled to protect men against their own lust and treated as inferior to men that dominate and mistreat them with impunity. And those whose religion is not approved by the State cannot enjoy full rights as citizens. This is the tragedy and despair that has brought the disillusioned millions to our streets.

The denial of human rights is not only the problem of its direct victims. It is an assault on our common humanness. Nowhere is this more apparent than laws and policies that make a particular status or belief a crime. In this light, what makes the persecution of Baha’is important is not just the Baha’is themselves. When the Constitution and leaders of the Islamic Republic proclaim that citizens of Iran can be denied the right to education and lawful marriage, dispossessed of their sacred sites, cemeteries, personal property and livelihood, arrested, tortured, and murdered, and subject to slander and hate propaganda, merely because of their religion, this is a crime not just against the Baha’is, but also a crime against the Iranian people, and a crime against humanity. Evidently, the historical animosity towards the Baha’is and their violent persecution by the Islamic Republic has served a useful function of creating an imaginary enemy against which the masses can be rallied in furtherance of the political ambitions of their leaders’ pretension of divine authority. But the injustice has been not only against the Baha’is. It has also been an injustice against all Iranian citizens that long for a nation identified with justice and human rights rather than a culture of hatred, self-deception and violence.

To say that there is only one way to be Iranian, whether through the prism of religious, ethnic, or ideological absolutism that leaves no room for diversity, may be reassuring in a world of uncertainty. But it is an abdication of our responsibility to build a future based on human dignity, of shaping our destiny through enlightenment rather than the deceptive comfort of denial and ignorance. Our identity is not an ancient statue in the ruins of Persepolis waiting to be discovered. Our identity is not to be found in blind imitation of outward pretensions of religious piety. Our identity is a reflection of the moral choices that we make in today’s world and our willingness to embrace both our self and the other in a common home. Our identity is a social construction, our nation an imagined community, a shared cultural space in which the lives of our people are intertwined in a mutual search for meaning, prosperity, and progress. Our identity is not fixed in time or place. It is fluid, complex, and constantly evolving. But we have a fundamental choice. And that choice is whether we define our self through hatred or humanity.

The persecution of Baha’is in Iran is not an immutable reality; it is not an irreversible part of Iran’s future. It is merely the reflection of the identity that some have tried to impose on the Iranian people. It is the reflection of blind obedience to leaders that elevate hatred to patriotism and transform victims into aggressors. The discrimination against Baha’is, the denial of their human rights, the hate propaganda against them, these are merely a particularly notorious manifestation of a culture of exclusion and violence that has afflicted all Iranians that dare to strive for a united nation in which the equal rights of all Iranians are respected. National unity does not mean national homogeneity.

Throughout its history, Iran has been most glorious and most powerful when it has embraced the diversity of its people. The construction of imaginary enemies as an instrument of power, the instigation of hatred and violence against those that dare to be different, this is an affliction on all Iranians, because they stand to lose a future in which their children will live in equality, dignity, and prosperity. By investing so much energy into hate propaganda to blame the Baha’is for all the evils of the world, Iran’s leaders are only confirming the bankruptcy of their own ideas. They are confirming yet again the irrelevance of a backward ideology that only serves the interests of those in power. Will convincing people that all Baha’is are Israeli spies and American agents help explain why Iran’s oil wealth has been squandered while people sink into ever greater poverty and misery? Will it explain why our brightest minds are leaving Iran at an accelerating pace? Will it explain why our extraordinary women are treated with such contempt and violence when they merely ask for respect and equality?

Religion and Power

In understanding the logic of hate-mongering against Baha’is, we have to begin from the premise of power rather than religion. The symbolic imagery of political Islam, its search for an authentic self in an imagined past, is often misconceived as a retreat against modernity. But far from being an answer to “Westoxication” (qarb-zadegi), it replicates the structures and ideologies of Western modernity in the clothing of Islam and cultural authenticity. Despite its peculiarities as a tradition-bound theocracy, the Islamic Republic of Iran shares the essential characteristics of other modern authoritarian States. The torture chambers of Evin prison, the disappearance and murder of dissidents, executions based on show trials, forced confessions and television propaganda to create an appearance of legitimacy, these reflect familiar patterns of abuse and control. As Professor Reza Afshari notes in a rebuke of cultural relativist claims by the Islamic Republic: “Claiming authenticity in tradition, while struggling to seize the commanding heights of the modern state, is a spectacular political double-cross.”

Theories of religious or ethnic conflict often overlook or belittle the importance of hate-mongering and incitement to violence as a pre-meditated instrument of political control. During the Yugoslav conflict for instance, it was fashionable to subscribe to Professor Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” theory as an explanation for the “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Bosnian Muslims. I was serving with the United Nations in Bosnia at that time and was astonished that this had become a prevalent view of the conflict. In Sarajevo, every person that I met came from a mixed marriage and for centuries this city had been a haven of religious tolerance. The reality was that it took a steady stream of myth, fantasy, half-truths, blatant lies, and conspiracy theories emanating from the State-controlled media, to persuade the Serbs that they must all blindly unite behind Slobodan Milošević against the imaginary Muslim enemy. The gradual blurring of the line between truth and illusion reached its apotheosis when the masters of demonology in the Serbian media claimed that the Muslims themselves were responsible for the February 1994 mortar attack on the Sarajevo market that killed sixty-eight civilians.

The persecution of the Baha’i minority is perhaps the most flagrant instance of such demonology in contemporary Iran. Although religious minorities such as Sufis, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sunni Muslims, as well as Shi’a reformists and even orthodox Shi’a clerics opposed to the Velayat-e-Faqih have suffered human rights violations, they are recognized as “people of the book” whereas the Baha’is enjoy no constitutional recognition or protections. Shortly after the 1979 revolution, clerics deemed all Baha’is as heretics whose blood may be shed with impunity (mahdur ad-dam), save those that recant their faith and “return” to the “true” religion of Islam, as interpreted by the State-sanctioned clerics of course. The accusations against them included everything the clerics held in their conspiratorial phantasm, such as espionage for America, Britain, and Israel, collaboration with the Shah’s regime, serving as agents of British, Russian, and Ottoman imperialism, and even collaborators of Wahabism.

Many dissidents in Iran are accused of being a Baha’i and it seems that our numbers have increased dramatically thanks to these accusations! When the writer Hadi Khorsandi was accused of being a Baha’i, he wrote to his friend and said: “I have good news! I just discovered I am a Baha’i. I am trying to determine the exact time but I am not sure. Maybe it was at 4:35 in the afternoon. Anyhow, I know that this has been achieved through inside influence (party bazi) because Baha’is are decent people and they would never accept a drunken gambler like me!”

In 1987, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran reported that the persecution of Baha’is included “torture, arbitrary imprisonment, denial of education and employment, arbitrary seizure of homes and possessions, confiscation of community assets, and seizure, desecration and destruction of holy places.” As “unprotected infidels”, Baha’is were legal non-persons and denied redress through the courts. For instance, on 21 September 1993, the court in the city of Shahr-e Rey failed to impose a penalty on two killers because the murdered man was, in the language of the verdict, “a member of the misled and misleading sect of Baha’ism.” This amounts to judicial approval of murder based solely on the religious beliefs of the victim. A more fundamental negation of human rights cannot be imagined.

The ideological constructions that justify violence against Baha’is have very little to do with religion. The persecution is not about theological differences. It is not about the merit of arguments on the interpretation of Quranic texts or traditions. The persecution is about how differences are accommodated in an authoritarian political system rather than a government ruled by human rights and democratic freedoms. Professor Mohammad Tavakoli points to the historical roots of contemporary anti-Bahá’i sentiments, observing that:

“the scapegoating of Babis was actively promoted by the Qajar state at a time when it faced a serious crisis of legitimacy. To win over the Shiite seminarians and ulama, the Qajar statesmen initiated a well-orchestrated public anti-Babi campaign. By concurrently ‘othering’ Babis and stressing some national religious traditions … the Qajar state actively promoted Shiism as the core of modern Iranian identity.” (Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Anti-Baha’ism and Islamism in Iran, 1941-1955”, Iran Name, Vol. XIX, Nos. 1-2, Winter & Spring 2001.)

Professor Tavakoli points out that the violent persecution of Baha’is was not the inevitable expression of religious differences: “Instead of encountering the Babis in a seminarian style of dialogue and debate, and thus fostering the formation of a national democratic public sphere, the Shia’ hierarchy opted for a violently repressive mode of encounter with Babis and Baha’is.” Accusations of Babism, he observes, were utilized “as an effective instrument for silencing the voices of dissent in the formative phase of modern Iranian polity.” It is in this respect that the emancipation of Baha’is is a litmus test for human rights in Iran. Evidently, the arrogation by the Islamic Republic of the right to exclude the largest religious minority in Iran from the pale of legal protection, and the attendant political culture of hate-mongering, are fundamentally incompatible with any reasonable conception of democracy. And so long as this hate-mongering and scape-goating against Baha’is is a feature of the Iranian political culture, the prospects of realizing human rights and freedoms will remain remote.

Towards a New Iranian Identity

There are in today’s Iran the unmistakable signs of a new beginning. Against the onslaught of violence, a different and better future is taking shape. Thirty years after the revolution, the romantic view of the Islamic Republic has given way to a sober understanding of the realities of ideological absolutism and political authoritarianism. In the midst of the uncertainties and dislocations of the transition from tradition to modernity, faced with the challenges for globalization on our national self-conception, we have experimented with a social revolution that has profoundly altered Iran. Like most other political ideologies, the utopia that it promised to its followers has not been realized. On the contrary, the revolution has eaten many of its own children who are now the dissidents and opponents that languish in the same prisons that the revolution was intended to shut down. Iran is today a nation of 70 million among whom 70% are under thirty years of age. This youthful generation is disillusioned, pragmatic, and not content with revolutionary ideological explanations of their bleak future amidst economic and social decline. This youthful generation is internet saavy, glued to satellite television, and aware of the world beyond Iran’s borders. The unprecedented protests demonstrate that this generation is not inclined to embrace hatred as its national identity. The Iranian people have awakened to the fact that the momentary comfort of chanting death to imaginary foreign enemies in the midst of an excited crowd is far outweighed by the profound damage that it does to the well-being of a people, to their capacity to live a life of peace and happiness.

Recently, I learned first-hand the measure of desperation of leaders that continue their hate-mongering against a peaceful religious minority while the Iranian people, seeking freedom and prosperity, sinks into ever greater misery. During the summer of 2008, the Islamic Republic News Agency published a story in which they accused me of having converted my student at McGill University, Nargess Tavasolian who is Shirin Ebadi’s daughter, to the Baha’i faith. The article suggested that McGill is a notorious centre of Zionism and Baha’ism, that I worked for the CIA, and that Nargess had proven her disloyalty to the revolution by writing her thesis on the incompatibility of certain Islamic punishments with human rights. This was a clear attempt to defame Mrs. Ebadi for her human rights activities and for agreeing to represent the seven Baha’i “friends” (yaran) who had earlier been arrested on espionage charges in May of that year. Some months earlier, Mrs. Ebadi had received death threats from a secret anti-Baha’i organization and it now became clear that this was part of a campaign of slander and intimidation by the Islamic Republic. What astonished me about this article was the fact that the mere suggestion that Nargess was now a Baha’i was in the eyes of the government propaganda machine the worst insult and accusation imaginable against Mrs. Ebadi! I was equally amazed that the government would have an informant at McGill University to gather information even on Nargess’s thesis topic! Surely there are better ways to spend the Iranian people’s money rather than spying on my poor student! And while McGill was defamed as a nest of Israeli and Baha’i spies, the children of prominent clerics, including Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, have been educated at the exact same institution! This attack was clearly a mark of desperation by those that have nothing else to offer the Iranian people except weaving conspiracies and creating imaginary enemies. They must be commended for their creativity but not their wisdom. Their desperate attacks were the catalyst for an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy and support by Iranians in favour of the Baha’is.

In response to the Islamic Republic’s propaganda, Iranian intellectuals and activists demonstrated an unprecedented solidarity with the Baha’is. Among these, I wish to point out my dear friend Khosro Shemiranie, a prominent Iranian journalist from Montreal, who wrote that: “If we truly are defenders of the right of all humans, now is the time to raise our voice in unison and cry aloud: For as long as the followers of the Bahai Faith are suppressed and imprisoned for their religion and convictions, we are all Bahais!” Others like the famous human rights activist and icon of the 18 Tir student demonstrations in 1999, Ahmad Batebi, asked why the Islamic Republic: “having thorough command over all financial and media resources of the nation, and maintaining belief and insistence on its own divine and absolutely unquestioned mandate and ideology … and its persistent injection of this belief into all elements of the nation, so afraid of any contact between the people and not only the Bahais but every religious minority group?” The voices of support in this unprecedented reversal of 150 years of intolerance includes no less than Grand Ayatollah Montazeri who also issued a now legendary fatwa stating that Baha’is should enjoy the same rights as other Iranian citizens. Even two of the leading candidates in the June presidential elections saw fit to mention that Baha’is should enjoy equal rights. They did so because they knew that the Iranian people, especially the new generation of youth, are less and less willing to accept an identity built on hatred and exclusion. Iranian student leaders have demanded the right of Baha’is to university education and during the protests in the streets some were filmed chanting: “Ahle hag natarsid, hamayatat mikonim (“Oh people of Truth, do not be afraid we support you”.) Others were chanting: “Bahá’í, Bahá’í, hemaayatat mikonim” (“Bahá’ís we will support you.”) Many of us never imagined we would live to see this day. Seeing these videos, I thought I was dreaming. These remarkable developments are unquestionably the beginning of a new conception of what it means to be Iranian, what it means to be a citizen with equal rights, and what it means to be a human being.

Hatred and identity

The suffering of the Baha’is is not because of anything the Baha’is have done. Their suffering is merely a reflection of how their tormentors choose to construct their identity. To define a nation, a religion, a revolution, through hatred and imagined enemies, is an injustice against those that are the victims of such hatred. But it is also an injustice against those that perpetuate such hatred. To treat others with inhumanity is to deny our own humanity. To behave unjustly towards others is to negate our own inherent nobility.

A story from the youth of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre explains the role that hatred plays in shaping our self-conception. He tells of a classmate who failed an exam on French literature while a Jew, the son of immigrants from Eastern Europe, had passed. Sartre’s classmate resented that a Jew could understand French poetry better than a true Frenchman like himself. He admitted that he had not studied for this subject which he did not enjoy. But the explanation for his failure was based on his dislike of the Jew rather than his own actions. Sartre writes that: “Far from experience producing his idea of the Jew, it was the latter which explained his experience. If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.” This reminded me of an almost identical story my father told me about his childhood when he was vilified by his teacher for having mastered his lessons in the Quran better than a Muslim child. The evils attributed to the Baha’is do not arise from experience or historical fact. Their demonization arises from anti-Baha’ism which either distorts or invents experience and historical fact to suit the tormentor’s purposes. Baseless accusations, distortion and fabrication of historical facts, conspiracies linking Baha’is with Russian and British Imperialism, with Wahabism and Zionism, with American conspiracies, the portrayal of Baha’is as “foreign” agents, as enemies of Islam and traitors to Iran, the depiction of Baha’is women as promiscuous, seducing pious Muslims into joining a “wayward sect”, these outrageous constructions in the perverse imagination of the hate-mongers says far more about their self-conception, their needs and purposes, than it says anything about the Baha’is. For such people, the Baha’is are a blank screen on which they can project all the fears and fantasies of their own making, all the negative qualities that threaten and endanger them. So it can be said that if Baha’is did not exist, they would be invented by the anti-Baha’is!

To seek the truth is to invite uncertainty. To search for answers in our longing for transcendence, for an elevated spiritual existence, we cannot avoid the frightening realization that we are not in control, that our reasoning is at best tentative, that new realities may intervene to cast doubt on time-cherished beliefs and assumptions. Where fear keeps us back from our journey, love propels us forward, and allows us to abandon our idols and vain imaginings as the price of union with our beloved. Those who define their self by hatred of others are searching for comfort, for avoiding the terrifying uncertainty and ineffability of truth. The anti-Baha’is have chosen hatred because hatred is their faith. That is how they choose to interpret the sacred text of the Quran, that is how they choose to define patriotism as Iranians. In doing so, they escape responsibility and doubt. They can blame everything on the Baha’is; for them reason is not an obstacle, because their simplistic creed of hatred provides all the answers, however illogical and contradictory it may be. In joining the violent mob, in chanting death to others, in deluding himself that murdering the “infidel” will bring divine blessings, the anti-Baha’i is made to feel good, and virtuous, and powerful, and to forget his feelings of inferiority, his guilt for abandoning responsibility and the demise of his nation. In the crowd, in the trance-inducing cries of hatred, he discovers a false identity by losing his inner-self, by fleeing the promptings of his conscience and the painful longing for truth, by opting instead for self-deception through an easily accessible and seemingly permanent but utterly hollow belief, devoid of humanity, without even a hint of the spiritual transcendence that unites man with his creator. In this way, the man who lives by hating others is a coward that cannot admit his cowardice to himself.

The emancipation of the Baha’is is also about the emancipation of Iran. It is about emancipation from hatred, ignorance, and violence. It is about building a future in which a divided and backward looking Iran is transformed into a nation that unites its diverse peoples under the banner of human dignity and true civilization and reclaims its place as a leader among nations; an Iran in which the measure of patriotism will be compassion and respect for the rights of all Iranian citizens. At long last, that day is within our reach. But a long and tortuous road lays ahead, and each and every one of us must arise in solidarity with the Iranian people, to struggle for a common justice, and to contribute his share at this unique moment in the history of our beloved home.

Source: Gozaar, A Forum on Human Rights and Democracy in Iran

[Editor’s Note: Iran Press Watch is presenting a new work in a series of analytical articles around the Iranian legal framework. This new article, by Dr. Christopher Buck, applies a few of the provisions of Iranian legal document, "Respecting Legitimate Freedom and Protecting Citizen's Rights," to the case of Yaran to demonstrate the procedural violations that Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Yaran's legal representative, has pointed out in her interviews.

In this series you can see:

“Iranian Islam, not the Yaran, on trial in the court of international opinion,”

“The Trial of the Yaran under Iranian Criminal Procedure: ‘The Justice of God’ or Procedural Injustice?”

“Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens' Rights”

The legal framwork, the court proceedings, the interviews and facts are all available -- well is it with them that judge fairly طوبی للمنصفین]

The Trial of the Yaran under the Iranian “Citizens’ Rights” and “Legal Procedures for Revolutionary Courts” Standards

Christopher Buck, Ph.D., J.D.

Æequum et bonum, est lex legum.
The equitable and good is the law of laws. (Latin maxim)

Jura debet esse omni exceptione major.
It is proper that laws be greater than any exception. (Latin maxim)

On February 7, 2010, the seven Baha’i former informal leaders, known as the Yaran (“Friends”), were tried in the second session of their trial, reportedly presided over by Judge Moghiseh, head of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. (Also transliterated as Moqiseh, from Persian قاضی مقیسه. See http://www.en-hrana.com/2010/02/17/hossein-noorani-nejad-sentenced-to-three-years-in-prison.) This branch, under Judge Sohrab Heydarifard, had previously sentenced Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, on a charge of espionage, to eight years of imprisonment, then released her and allowed her to leave Iran, and later staged an appeals trial held in absentia, in which Ms. Saberi was formally cleared of espionage. Not so in the case of the Yaran. The fabricated charges that the Yaran face are the work of the intelligence and security organizations of the Islamic regime. As stated by lead defense counsel, 2003 Nobel peace prize laureate, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, the charges include “spying for America and Israel, acting against national security and [engaging in] propaganda against the [Islamic Republic’s] system.” (See “Iran’s Ebadi says seven Baha’is must be acquitted,” Iran Press Watch, January 13, 2010) Press and pundits have not yet picked up on this evidently new charge of “spying for America” – which has yet to be independently verified.

The January 12, 2010 arraignment and the February 7, 2010 trial session were closed to the public and to the press (at least to the “free press”). Family members of the accused were not permitted to enter the courtroom. (See “Baha’i leaders make second court appearance”) In legal parlance, this closed hearing is called an “in camera” (Latin: “in chambers”) session. The approximately one-hour session on February 7, 2010 was reportedly focused on procedural matters.

Dr. Ebadi has recently commented on both the substantive and procedural aspects of this case. On January 24–25, television “News X” of India broadcast an in-depth documentary series on the persecution of the Baha’is of Iran, which included an interview with Dr. Ebadi. As for the charges that have been preferred against the seven Yaran, Dr. Ebadi characterized the charges as baseless and politically motivated:

I am the head of the legal team representing these seven Baha’is. I have studied their files thoroughly. There is not a shred of evidence for the charges leveled against them. Charges such as espionage for Israel, propaganda against the national security and others, are all excuses. Any just and impartial judge would, without a doubt, issue a complete acquittal and release them immediately. …

I repeat, my clients are innocent. There is absolutely no evidence for any of these accusations. They should be released and acquitted immediately. If the judge finds them guilty and sentences them, he will be breaking the law.

Shirin Ebadi, “Iran: Baha’i Persecution,” News X. See “News X of India broadcasts series on Baha’is in Iran,” online at http://iran.bahai.us/2010/01/27/news-x-of-india-broadcasts-series-on-bahais-in-iran. Select link for “Part 2.”

Regarding the arraignment, which took place on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, Dr. Ebadi commented:

The legal proceedings took place behind closed doors. Even the families of my clients were not permitted to be present during the sessions. Also the legal team initially was not permitted to be present in the sessions, during the trial of their own clients. But they objected to this absurd decision and eventually were permitted to be present during the session.

Asked if these proceedings were “fair and transparent,” Dr. Ebadi replied:

These procedures are neither just nor transparent. They are not even in accordance with legal procedures and laws of Iran. I want to add that these clients of mine are not the only victims of injustice in Iran, though. The same unjust procedures are applied to all political prisoners. And in that case, I cannot tell you how far he will go in terms of breaking the law.

It should be pointed out, however, that the Iranian authorities do not recognize the existence of “political prisoners” as a distinct category. Asked if international pressure might be effective, Dr. Ebadi agreed, saying:

International pressure will be very effective. We need more international pressure on the government of Iran. But this is not only in the case of the Baha’is, but for all of the many political prisoners in Iran.

From the beginning of the revolution, there has been a lot of persecution against the Baha’is. They have not even been permitted to continue with their university education. But I must add that discrimination has been applied not just against the Baha’is, but against all other religions and religious minorities in Iran.

Despite the chorus of condemnation from around the world, there has been no obvious effect. Yet international pressure must be maintained, as informed commentators agree that the government of Iran is influenced by global opinion.

As this trial proceeds, protractedly and painfully, some further legal considerations may be brought to bear in the case at bar, particularly as regards the application of an important legal document that has just been made available by Iran Press Watch, in translation. The translation of “Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights” (Qánún-i Ihtirám bih Ázádíháyih Mashrú’ va Hifz-i Huqúq-i Shahrvandí), a landmark legal document adopted on May 4, 2004 by the Parliament (Majlis) of the Islamic Republic of Iran, invites commentary in the context of its meaningful application to the current human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in which the trial of the Yaran affords a test case. See “‘Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights’: Excerpt from the Iranian legal framework,” translated by Omid Ghaemmaghami, a Ph.D. candidate in Islamic studies at the University of Toronto – published for the first time in its entirety by Iran Press Watch – at http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/5505. The original Persian may be consulted online at http://www.bia-judiciary.ir/tabid/144/Default.aspx).

A brief application of a few selected provisions of this document will further illuminate the procedural violations to which Dr. Shirin Ebadi has pointed in her “News X” interview, cited above. Since Dr. Ebadi was Iran’s first woman judge, she is fully conversant with the Iranian Code of Criminal Procedure, with Iran’s Penal Code, and with this newly translated document, “Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights.” Although she does not explicitly reference these documents, Dr. Ebadi implicitly invokes them (or evokes their purport) in the course of her interviews. As such, some, if not all of the following selections from the Iranian code may not only be brought to bear on the trial of the Yaran, but may offer a heuristic, or key, for a more nuanced appreciation of Dr. Ebadi’s arguments within the Iranian legal framework.

“Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights”

1. The investigation and prosecution of crimes, the performance of searches, and the issuance of rulings governing security and temporary arrests must be based on the law, and must result from judicial decisions and warrants that are clear and transparent. Investigators, prosecutors and judges must set aside all personal interests and eschew the abuse of power or any act of violence or undue detention.

Commentary: The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Court is considered an “extraordinary court” – that is, a special tribunal whose jurisdiction is primarily security matters. Enacted in 1996, a section within Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, entitled “Offenses Against the National and International Security of the Country,” sets forth those offenses over which Revolutionary Courts have jurisdiction. The charge of espionage is obviously a security matter, which explains why the Yaran were detained and eventually summoned before Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Extraordinary tribunals are typically set up to try certain offenses, generally without following all the procedures of the ordinary court system. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has observed that these types of courts generally practice arbitrary detention, and typically deny their detainees the due process of a fair trial:

One of the most serious causes of arbitrary detention is the existence of special courts, military or otherwise, regardless of what they are called. Even if such courts are not in themselves prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Working Group has none the less found by experience that virtually none of them respects the guarantees of the right to a fair trial enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the said Covenant.

(Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1996/40, at 26.)

Notwithstanding the foregoing, it is important to note that this provision, Section 1 of “Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights,” requires the issuance of “warrants that are clear and transparent” for “the investigation and prosecution of crimes … and temporary arrests.” The present writer has not been able to determine whether official arrest warrants were issued, as required by this provision. Iran Press Watch readers are invited to inform the present writer as to whether these required warrants were duly issued, or not.

In connection with the “abuse of power” that this provision proscribes, the Baha’i International Community has implicitly suggested that the Iranian criminal justice system, in cooperation with the Ministry of Intelligence, has abused its power in its treatment of the Yaran. In its open letter of March 4, 2009 to Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, Prosecutor General of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Baha’i International Community implied an abuse of power in the following documented abuse of the seven accused Baha’is:

Then last year the seven members of the Yaran were imprisoned, one of them in March and the remaining six in May. For some time they were held in solitary confinement and denied access to their families. Although eventually family members were allowed brief visits under strict observation, the prisoners have yet to be given access to legal counsel. The conditions of their incarceration have varied in degree of severity over the course of the past several months, with the five male members confined at one time to a cell no more than ten square meters in size, with no bed.

(Baha’i International Community, “Letter to Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, Prosecutor General, Islamic Republic of Iran,” online at http://bic.org/areas-of-work/persecution/prosecutor-general-iran-en.pdf.

Precise dates, within a general timeframe, may be noted here. On March 5, 2008, Mahvash Sabet, one of the Baha’i leaders, was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in Mashhad. (The case was later transferred from the Ministry of Intelligence and is now in the hands of the Judiciary.) On May 14, 2008, the remaining six Baha’i leaders – Jamaloddin Khanjani, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Saeid Rezaie, Fariba Kamalabadi, Vahid Tizfahm, and Afif Naeimi – were arrested at their respective homes in Tehran. The first reported family visit took place in September 2008, after the Yaran had spent about four months in solitary confinement. The Yaran are incarcerated in Section 209 of Iran’s largest and most notorious prison, Evin Prison, located in the northwestern region of the Iranian capital, Tehran. The four-month solitary confinement had no justification whatsoever, and was an arbitrary abuse of power.

2. Convictions must be in accordance with legal procedures and should be restricted to those who commit the crime and their accessories. Until such time as the crime has been established in a court of law and a verdict that is based on sound arguments and supported by legal evidence or based on sources of religious jurisprudence (in the event that legal evidence is not available), the defendant is presumed innocent. Each person is entitled to protection under the law.

Commentary: In the American legal system, as is common practice elsewhere, criminal charges are presented as “allegations,” and the judiciary refrains from conclusory statements prior to the conclusion of any given trial. Not so in the case of the Iranian judiciary. Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, Prosecutor General, for instance, was quoted by Iran’s state-run “Press TV” as stating that the Iranian Baha’is in general (and, by direct implication, the Yaran in particular) are enemies of Islam and pose a threat to Iran’s national security: “Baha’i organisations are illegal and their connections to Israel and their enmity toward Islam and the Islamic system are absolutely certain and their threat against the national security is a proven fact.” See this statement in the original Persian online at http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8711271271.

According to the Fars News agency, this statement was made in a letter that Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi had addressed to Hojjatol-Islam Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, who was the head of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran from 2005 to July 2009, when he was abruptly dismissed and then appointed Iran’s prosecutor general by the new judiciary chief, Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani. Dorri-Najafabadi commented on why the Baha’is should not be guaranteed the protections otherwise afforded by Article 20 and Article 23 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which, under Chapter III (“The Rights of the People”), commands:

Article 20
All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conformity with Islamic criteria.

Article 23
The investigation of individuals’ beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief.

Dorri-Najafabadi has taken the position that these constitutional protections do not apply to those Iranians who, individually or collectively, have been identified by the Government as posing a national security threat (regardless of whether or not evidence exists to support that claim). Freedoms enjoyed under the Iranian Constitution, according to Dorri-Najafabadi, must, in the public interest, be suspended in favor of the national security and to preserve territorial sovereignty. Referring to Israel as “Occupied Palestine,” Dorri-Najafabadi states that there is incontrovertible evidence of ties between Iranian Baha’is and the “Zionist” state. The Baha’i World Centre is located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel – not because of any connection with “Zionism,” but because the prophet-founder of the Baha’i Faith, Baha’u’llah (1817–1892), was exiled, along with around 70 other exiles, to Palestine, and was incarcerated in the most notorious prison of the Ottoman Empire, the ancient Crusader fortress-prison of ‘Akká, next to the Bay of Haifa.

Dorri-Najafabadi’s “finding of fact” (to use the American legal expression) is hardly a presumption of innocence. Rather, it is a foregone conclusion – that is, a decision made before the evidence for it is known. Although citing unspecified documents that reputedly provide evidence of such a connection, the argument that Dorri-Najafabadi has articulated is basically nothing more than what may be termed, “guilt by association.” Here, the guilt is not defined at all. Nowhere does Dorri-Najafabadi accuse Baha’is of overtly plotting to overthrow the Iranian regime, or covertly seeking to undermine its authority, or perversely intending to commit terrorist acts, or inchoately attempting to transmit state secrets. As such, Dorri-Najafabadi’s vague accusations amount to scarcely more than a presumption of guilt, not a presumption of innocence.

Dr. Shirin Ebadi clearly evoked the purport of Section 2 of “Protecting Citizens’ Rights” when she said: “If justice is to be carried out and an impartial judge should investigate the charges leveled against my clients, no other verdict can be reached save that of acquittal.” See “Iran’s Ebadi says seven Baha’is must be acquitted.” Iran Press Watch (January 13th, 2010). (Hear the audio in Persian, online at http://www.televisionwashington.com/media1.aspx?lang=fa&id=2802.) Pursuant to the clear terms of Section 2 of “Protecting Citizens’ Rights,” Judge Moghiseh’s investigation must be based on “sound arguments” and his verdict must be “supported by legal evidence.”

3. The court and the public prosecutor’s office must not deprive defendants and the accused of the right to a legal defense, and must always provide the accused an opportunity to seek the counsel of an attorney or [legal] expert.

Commentary: This requirement has partly been met, yet partly denied. First, in the case of offenses against national security, Article 128 of Iran’s Code of Criminal Procedure permits a judge to deny access to lawyers during the investigation phase (which can last months). Article 128 may also be invoked where strict confidentiality must be maintained, or where the presence of someone other than the defendant may, at the discretion of the judge, cause “corruption.” Thus, Article 128 is routinely used to deny the accused access to family members and their attorneys during the course of the inquest. There appears to be no judicial review, much less judicial oversight, of a judge’s abuse of this discretionary authority.

5. The guiding principle that individuals should not be arrested or detained without due process demands that all necessary arrests and convictions follow the procedures and conventions that have been determined by the law. In the event of a moratorium, the file must be sent to the appropriate judicial authorities, and the family of the detained must be apprised of any and all developments.

Commentary: With respect to this provision, the present writer has previously published an analysis of the pretrial proceedings in light of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and with reference to Iran’s Code of Criminal Procedure. (See Christopher Buck, “The Trial of the Yaran under Iranian Criminal Procedure: ‘The Justice of God’ or Procedural Injustice?”) Clearly, “the family of the detained” was not regularly “apprised of any and all developments” after the serial moratoria (procedural delays), as mandated by Section 3 of “Protecting Citizens’ Rights.”

15. The head of the judiciary must appoint a committee to supervise the implementation of the above provisions. All departments that are in some way affected by this law must cooperate with this committee. The committee has the duty to prosecute those whom it finds to be in violation of these provisions. It must also work to correct any deficiencies in procedures, and bring them into compliance with these legal stipulations. It must prosecute violators severely, and must report all its actions to the head of the judiciary.

Commentary: If the pretrial and trial proceedings of the Yaran are any indication, this provision is largely inert. What is interesting is that, in principle, although not in practice, egregious violations of the protections and procedural guarantees mandated by “Protecting Citizens’ Rights” would, within the Iranian criminal justice system, constitute actionable criminal behavior.

Trial Rights (and Exceptions) under Another Iranian Standard:
The “Code of Legal Procedures for Common and Revolutionary Courts in Criminal Matters”

The Revolutionary Courts follow the rules of court known as the “Code of Legal Procedures for Common and Revolutionary Courts in Criminal Matters,” the Persian original of which may be consulted online at http://hoghoogh.online.fr/article.php3?id_article=67. Three of its provisions will here be cited in translation, and applied to the trial of the Yaran.
Article 188

Court proceedings are open to the public, except in cases in which:

1. The case involves acts that are incompatible with norms of chastity and crimes that are against morality.
2. The case involves family or private matters, as per the request of the individuals involved.
3. Openness of the court might harm religious feelings or security.

Commentary: Here, the third exception, which is the standard that has been applied in this case, again proves that the trial of the Yaran has been ruled by exceptions to the clear provision of Iranian criminal procedure. Regarding the arraignment on January 12, 2010, Dr. Ebadi recounted:

On the basis of the information given to me by the families of my clients, the first session of the trial began today; out of the four lawyers which the Centre for the Defense of Human Rights [established by Ebadi and other lawyers in Iran, and currently closed by the authorities] had assigned to them – myself, Mr. [Abdolfattah] Soltani, Mr [Hadi] Esma’ilzadeh and Ms. [Mahnaz] Parakand – [the latter two], Mr. Esma’ilzadeh and Ms. Parakand took part in the hearing, but in spite of our request, it was announced that the hearing would be held behind closed doors, and they even made the relatives leave the room.

See “Iran’s Ebadi says seven Baha’is must be acquitted.” Iran Press Watch (January 13th, 2010).

While the closed hearing operated pursuant to an exception to the public trial requirement of Article 188, if there is really no security risk posed by the seven Baha’i accused, then one can only conclude that the closed session was intended to protect the Court from public scrutiny, in the name of safeguarding Iran’s security interests.

Article 190

When the investigations are complete and a date for the trial is set, the defendant or his lawyer have the right to go to the court office and receive necessary information regarding the contents of the dossier.

Commentary: Here, the involvement of Dr. Shirin Ebadi caused pretrial procedures and trial proceedings to be studied more scrupulously. Commenting on the pretrial procedings, Dr. Ebadi stated:

When I and my colleagues accepted to act as their defense lawyers, they [detainees] had not been allowed to see their families for over a year. And for some time too, they were not allowed to meet with us. After a year and a half when the investigation ended, I and the rest of the lawyers were permitted to read the dossier, and we met them on one occasion in prison.

After the inquest had run its course and the investigation was completed (presumably by the Ministry of Intelligence), the case file, or dossier, was finally given to Dr. Ebadi and her legal team. After examining the government’s case as presented in the dossier, Dr. Ebadi remarked: “I read the dossier and fortunately or unfortunately, found in it no cause or evidence to sustain the criminal charges upheld by the prosecutor.” See “Iran’s Ebadi says seven Baha’is must be acquitted.” Iran Press Watch (January 13th, 2010).

Article 210

The judge must make no public statements regarding either the innocence or guilt of the defendant until a verdict is pronounced and the trial is ended.

Commentary: Unlike Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, Judge Moghiseh, head of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, has refrained from making public statements on the guilt or innocence of the accused Yaran. In theory, execution of the “Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights” Act and its executive code is supposed to prevent any infringement of the constitutional and statutory rights of individuals as Iranian citizens. But various exceptions to these protections have been applied to the Yaran, with the result that their pretrial and trial proceedings have in many instances followed, not the black letter law, but its exceptions.

Conclusion

The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) is scheduled to review the Islamic Republic of Iran’s human rights record on February 15, 2010. On February 8, 2010, Dr. Ebadi wrote to the UNHRC, urging the Commission to review Iran’s record in light of recent events. She states, in relevant part:

Although I have already highlighted the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran on several occasions in writing and in person, I deem it necessary to once again draw the attention of Your Honour and the distinguished members of the UNHRC to the following issues as you prepare to review the Islamic Republic of Iran’s human rights record, on 15 February 2010: …

Not only non-Muslims are persecuted – such as members of the Baha’i faith who, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, have not even been allowed to study at university – but even the followers of Iran’s official religion, Shi‘ite Islam, have not been immune from government repression; as an example, one could cite the persecution and detention of the Gonabad Dervishes. …

So, I urge you, yet again, to use whatever means possible to convince the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to abide by the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, in particular the resolution of December 2009; to allow human rights rapporteurs, especially those who deal with arbitrary arrests, freedom of expression, religion and women’s rights, to enter Iran, and to cooperate with them.

I also urge you to appoint a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, who would be able to continuously monitor the government’s conduct and, by offering prompt advice and suggestions, help end the political crisis and mounting repression.

My honourable friends! Please bear in mind that we are all responsible and accountable to history.

Dr. Shirin Ebadi
08 February 2010

See “Open Letter to Honourable Madam Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), By Shirin Ebadi, Human Rights Advocate and 2003 Nobel Laureate,” online at http://www.humanrights-ir.org/php/view_en.php?objnr=345.

In my survey of the relevant Iranian law, it is clear that Iran’s Constitutional protections may be effectively suspended if anything deemed contrary to the current Government’s interpretation of “Islamic criteria” may be invoked. In the immediate aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran’s draft constitution was published by the provisional government of Bazargan in June 1979. This draft was modeled on the 1958 constitution of the French Fifth Republic. The cleric-dominated Assembly of Experts subsequently altered this draft beyond recognition. A case in point is Article 4.

Article 4 presumptively and preemptively trumps all Iranian constitutional guarantees and safeguards. All that has to happen is for the Guardian Council to decree that any protection, whether extended to an individual or a group, effectively conflicts with “Islamic criteria.” A binary opposition of principles obtains here: Islam and the Constitution are potentially brought into conflict within this presumably “Islamic Constitution.” Article 4 commands:

Article 4

All civil, penal financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. This principle applies absolutely and generally to all articles of the Constitution as well as to all other laws and regulations, and the fuqaha’ [jurists] of the Guardian Council are judges in this matter.

See “The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” online at http://www.iranchamber.com/government/laws/constitution_ch01.php.

Within the four corners of this Constitution, citizens’ rights are cornered. The effective application of each and every one of those rights may be compromised by interpretations of “Islamic criteria.” Not only are Constitutional protections subject to suspension, but the Code of Criminal Procedure contains various exceptions as well, which I have previously analyzed. Doubtless there are even more exceptions that can effectively neutralize, nullify and nix whatever procedural guarantees have been extended to all Iranian citizens, on paper. With respect to “Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights” that Iran Press Watch has recently brought to light in Omid Ghaemmaghami’s translation of that document, reputedly “Islamic criteria” and putative “security” considerations have combined to effectively create a subtext that renders this document largely ineffective and unenforceable.

These unrelenting erosions of citizens’ rights have altered the social landscape of Iran. The judicial face of Iran has been transmogrified. Unfortunately, the proverbial parchment, on which the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been indelibly inscribed, has itself been parched and blackened by flaming abuses of power, seething violations of criminal procedure, and scathing pretextual accusations without foundation – not to mention by the protracted inquest conducted in the name of the criminal “investigation,” by the harassment and various threats posed to lead defense counsel, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, and her family, by the imprisonments of her co-counsel, Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani (co-founder of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights), by the isolation of the Yaran from family members for extended periods of time, by cells without beds, and by the possible occurrence of unspoken, but unspeakable acts of intense interrogation constituting unreported psychological torture.

The real “security risk” is not any connection of the Yaran with Israel or America. The actual security risk is the threat to the security of Iran’s citizens. The sanctity – both secular and sacred – of their constitutional and statutory rights is in grave peril.

“Unfortunately, for some time now,” Dr. Ebadi has commented, “the Judiciary has distanced itself from justice.” Because of the several violations of criminal procedure, the Yaran have been subjected to procedural injustice. This is why Dr. Ebadi concludes: “This case was set up wrongly from the start, that is, my clients should have been released immediately. This delay which has lasted up to now is a contravention of the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” See “Iran’s Ebadi says seven Baha’is must be acquitted.” Iran Press Watch (January 13th, 2010).

The Hon. Judge Moghiseh has the duty and discretion to review the procedural violations that Dr. Ebadi has publicly decried, as well as the duty to review the procedural exceptions that have been applied, even if lawfully so. May the Hon. Judge Moghiseh be guided by this venerable Latin maxim: Jura debet esse omni exceptione major. “It is proper that laws be greater than any exception.” May the procedural exceptions no longer prove to be the rule in the trial proceedings, as they have in the pretrial proceedings.

The evidence of procedural violations should carry special weight in the calculus of determining the outcome. The Hon. Judge Moghiseh has the discretion to dismiss the state’s case against the Yaran on procedural grounds alone, without ever reaching the merits of the case. This would arguably be the most expedient resolution of these proceedings, thereby allowing the state to “save face” by not subjecting the Iranian judiciary to worldwide opprobrium when the state’s evidence is exposed as a sham, just as Dr. Ebadi, after having read the state’s dossier, “found in it no cause or evidence to sustain the criminal charges upheld by the prosecutor.” May the Hon. Judge Moghiseh be guided by this venerable Latin maxim: Æequum et bonum, est lex legum. “The equitable and good is the law of laws.”

As the trial proceeds, the Hon. Judge Moghiseh must evenhandedly consider the state’s case, hear the defense, weigh the evidence, and render a just verdict. Pursuant to Iranian law under the provisions of “Respecting Legitimate Freedoms and Protecting Citizens’ Rights,” may the Hon. Judge Moghiseh “set aside all personal interests,” assure “the accused of the[ir] right to a legal defense,” uphold “due process” and, “based on sound arguments and supported by legal evidence,” issue a “judicial decision” that is “clear and transparent.” May the Hon. Judge Moghiseh, after reviewing the evidence (or lack of evidence, as the case may be), see fit to dismiss all seven of the Yaran, on procedural grounds alone, or on the merits of the case, or both.

We may never know the full history of the trial of the Yaran – the “canaries in Iran’s cages.” (See http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-canaries-in-irans-cages/article1427611/.)

But history will know full well of our response.

* * *

Yet there is another, less well-known constant: hostility towards the religious minority of the Baha’i. In Iran, where the religion has its origins, there are still an estimated 350,000 Baha’i, making them the country’s largest religious minority by far. Unlike Jews and Christians, however, they are not entitled to protection as a religious minority under the constitution.

Read Full Story on Qantara.de

Her presentation at the Washington DC gathering is available at: YouTube

Editor’s Note

Letter to the Editor:

In the fall of 1981, I was a 21 year old college student in Canada, when I received a phone call from my uncle, informing me that my parents had been arrested by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards at their home in Tehran.  My parents had been hosting a meeting of the governing body of the Baha’is of Tehran comprising of nine (9) individuals who oversaw the affairs of the local Baha’i community.  The authorities had taken my parents and their guests to the notorious Evin Prison.

The nine member governing body merely provided support and comfort to the members of the local Baha’i community, including providing support to people who were being persecuted and whose families had been kidnapped, tortured and killed by the government.  The Baha’is were not involved in politics, nor were they doing anything illegal.  As such, I thought that my parents and their guests would not remain in prison very long, and would be released after the authorities had realized that this whole thing was a mistake.  I was wrong.  My parents remained in prison and were subjected to harassment and interrogation.

The Baha’i Faith, an independent religion that started in Iran in the mid-19th century, has always been demonized by the Shiite religious establishment as being heretical and against Islam.  In the early 1980s the persecution reached new heights after the revolution, resulting in kidnappings, disappearances, and executions.  The Baha’i commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes, non-interference in partisan politics and obedience to governmental authority made them an easy target.  Theological differences between the Baha’i Holy Writings and those expressed by the Islamic clerical establishment – including the Baha’i viewpoints on the universal and progressive nature of religion, as well as equality of men and women – caused the authorities to want to stamp out the Baha’i community from Iran.  This was despite the fact that the Baha’is were – and are – the largest religious minority in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Months after my parents were arrested at their home, after they had been physically and emotionally abused and tortured, and their property had been confiscated, my mother, Shidrukh Amirkia Bagha, together with seven of her guests who were arrested that fateful night, was summarily and secretly executed on January 4, 1982, without any trial or opportunity to defend herself.  She was only 45 years old.  My mother’s sole crime was that she was a Baha’i who would not renounce her faith.  In this way my mother was taken from me and I was denied the chance of seeing her again and introducing her to my son.

My mother never hurt a soul in her life.  She loved her family and nurtured each of her children with utmost care.  She loved music and the arts, and was always encouraging and supportive to everyone.  It is beyond comprehension that the government would sanction her killing because of her religion.

Now, over 28 years have passed since the day my mother was killed.  The persecution of Baha’is at the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran has continued in different forms throughout these years.  Within the last few years, it has increased in intensity, forcing me and my family to relive that nightmare.

In 2008, seven members of the unofficial “Friends of Iran” [Yaran] were arrested and imprisoned without any explanation. This seven member group was allowed by the Iranian government to exist after the official nine member national governing body of the Bahá’ís of Iran were executed and all Baha’i institutions were dismantled.   The government had long known of this body and its members, whose only duty was to serve and attend to the needs of the members of the Baha’i community of Iran.  They were operating with permission and with the full knowledge of the authorities.  On October 18 the seven former leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community will go on trial on capital charges of espionage and threatening national security.  They have been in prison for well more than a year now. The group’s two lawyers have not only been refused the legally required visits with their clients, but more likely will not have access to their clients. One – Abdulfattah Sultani – is in prison on charges of participating in the so-called “Velvet Revolution”, while the other, the Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, stands accused by the regime of participating in the same “conspiracy”, but has been fortunately traveling in the West.

I cannot help but feel the pain of the families of the imprisoned Baha’i leaders, as I know only too well what they are going through.  At this time there are over 40 Bahá’ís in prison in Iran solely because of their religion.

I pray and hope that this time we can save them and all the innocent people imprisoned in Iran, and that their families do not experience the hell that my family has gone through. When my mother was killed, all of the newspapers in Iran and outside were largely silent!  No one protested.  We cannot let this happen again!  Every day that goes by, I wonder how I could have helped my mother.  I cannot bring my mother back, but I cannot stay silent and see others lose their loved ones too.

Sincerely,

Mojan Bagha

Bethesda, Maryland

August 23, 2009

[A note by IPW:  For further information on the Baha’i martyr Mrs. Bagha, kindly refer to:  http://www.shidrukh.org/index.htm]

For third-year bioengineering student Sattar Khoshkhoo, vice chair of the Baha’i Association, a student group at UCLA, the pursuit of higher education has come at a tremendous cost: departing from Iran, his homeland of 16 years, without any surety of return.

“My family left everything in Iran just so my sister and I could get an education,” he said.

His immigration to the United States has given him the opportunity to obtain a university degree, something that has been prohibited by the Iranian government to all the Baha’is in Iran because of their faith.

Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, more than 200 Baha’is have been executed on the grounds of their faith, said Latifeh Hagigi, professor of Persian language and literature in the department of Near Eastern languages and cultures. She had immigrated to the United States with her husband in 1974 to attend graduate school. However, the increased persecution of the Baha’is after the revolution made it very difficult for her to return to her motherland, she said.

And while the recent election cycle in Iran – and the possibility of a change in leadership – might have seemed to the global community a means of establishing human rights and equal treatment for the Baha’is in Iran, the Baha’is in the UCLA community assert that what is even more important than a change in governmental leadership is a shift in the Iranian societal perspective of the Baha’i Faith, something that is already underway.

Hagigi, a Baha’i herself, has already noted this change in the increased curiosity and understanding that accompanies the younger generation of Iranians.

“Now, the (younger generation) has become more interested to see what these Baha’is believe, why they are imprisoned, why they are executed,” she said. “They are questioning, they are becoming more motivated to find out.”

Still, even with this change in attitude that accompanies the generational shift in Iranian society, the Baha’i Faith has yet to be accepted in Iran and its followers, to be treated equally in society, she said.

Unlike Islam, which constitutes the religious majority in Iran, the Baha’i Faith does not believe that divine revelation ends with Muhammad, said Sahba Shayani, a second-year graduate student of Iranian studies and treasurer of the Baha’i Association.

Rather, the Baha’is believe in the principle of “progressive revelation,” which explains after a certain time period, God sends a new prophet to guide mankind and provide them with new teachings that reflect the needs of society with the changing times, Hagigi said.

Among these prophets were Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad – central figures in the independent world religions of today. The most recent of these messengers, who appeared in the mid-1800s, was Baha’u’llah, whose title means “the glory of God” in Arabic, Shayani said.

Baha’u’llah was among the many followers of the Bab, a Persian man who in 1844 revealed the coming of a divine messenger of God. After his religious teachings spread throughout Persia, the Muslim clergy arrested and executed the Bab and killed, imprisoned and tortured thousands of his followers, Shayani said.

Among these followers was Baha’u’llah, whose life was spared. Immediately after his release, however, he was exiled to Baghdad because he had continued to teach the Babi faith and gather many followers.

It was in Baghdad where Baha’u’llah declared himself as the divine messenger promised by the Bab and foretold by all the prophets of the past, Shayani said.

“He taught his followers about the unity and oneness of mankind,” he added.

Baha’u’llah was soon exiled to Constantinople, then Adrianople and finally to Acre, in present-day Israel, where he is buried, Shayani said. Following Baha’u’llah’s death, his son Abdu’lBahá helped to spread the Baha’i Faith around the world, Shayani added.

Today, the Baha’is make up a world community with more than 5 million adherents from countries across the globe and constitute the largest non-Muslim minority in Iran, Hagigi said.

At UCLA, Shayani and Khoshkhoo, along with the Baha’i Association Chair Shoghi Fareid, a third-year psychobiology student, practice the Baha’i Faith and use their religion as a means of doing humanitarian service in their local community.

“The Baha’i Association is based on the teachings of Baha’u’llah – the principles of equality between men and women, service to mankind, universal education, and the harmony of science and religion,” Fareid said.

The Baha’i Association recently participated in a rally for human rights, which took place on July 25 in Los Angeles. Additionally, the club organizes children’s classes that focus on moral and ethical principles, as well as junior youth groups that empower them to take on an active role as leaders in their community, Fareid said.

“We do not participate in partisan politics, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean we have to be passive about situations involving human rights,” Shayani said.

Rooted at the very base of the Baha’i Faith, then, is the belief that a global community transcends all religious, racial or ethnic bounds.

“We believe the world is one country, and all the people are citizens of this country,” Hagigi said. “It doesn’t matter what race we come from and what religious background, we are all one family.”

The Shiite government in Iran has branded the Baha’i Faith as heretical to Islam and has committed persecutions against its followers since the days of both the Bab and Baha’u’llah, Shayani said.

He said that his six-year stay in Iran, from the age of 4 to 10, was life-changing.

“I saw the ill treatment of the Baha’is much more closely than I would have had I observed it from (the U.S.),” he said.

“Baha’i children and youth have been persecuted in schools by their teachers, business owners have been harassed, many Baha’i holy places have been destroyed, and Baha’i cemeteries have been desecrated multiple times,” he added.

The Islamic Republic warns governmental agencies and the police not to give work permits to Baha’is and not to hire them in the public sector. And in the private sector, only low-paying jobs with no opportunities for a promotion are offered, Khoshkhoo said.

As of early 2008, seven of the national leaders of the Baha’is in Iran, who make up the Yaran, or the “Friends of Iran,” have been imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison on charges of heresy and espionage for Israel, Hagigi said.

Incarcerated for more than a year, their trial date has been postponed several times, the latest of which is set for Tuesday, Shayani said.

Meanwhile, Abdolfattah Soltani, a member of the legal team that is to defend the community leaders, is also imprisoned, and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, the senior member of the team, remains out of the country, according to the Baha’i World News Service Web site.

And while these persecutions against the Baha’is continue in Iran, as well as other countries like Egypt, Baha’is refuse to meddle in partisan politics, Hagigi said.

“We abide by the government. We are well-wishers of the government,” Shayani said. “We pray for them to have foresight and justice and to provide for the well-being of all people within their community.”

During June’s election cycle, “the Baha’is were not for one candidate or another,” Shayani said.

What they want is for the government to give them the human rights they deserve and treat everyone equally, he added.

Khoshkhoo’s family history stands testament to the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran since its initial inception in the 19th century.

He recollected the execution of his grandfather, carried out simply because of his faith, and his father’s imprisonment two years before he was born.

But he recollected such memories with a sense of understanding.

“The Baha’is consider Iran very dear to them,” he said. “So does my family.”

As Khoskhoo traced the history of the Baha’i Faith, he recalled that “the children of the people who caused so much pain and suffering have developed a positive attitude for the Baha’is.”

And again and again, the Baha’is have shown that patience is a virtue.

“By just following their principles of unity and peace and by doing what is right, a huge change has been made,” he adds.

With a bittersweet sense of optimism, he, Fareid and Shayani said that they envision the future of Iran to be a glorious one.

Despite their persecution and ill treatment, Shayani said, “Iran, in itself, is dear and important to all Baha’is around the world, because it is the cradle of our faith.”

And while many might believe that the Baha’is in Iran wish to leave their homeland, they are there to stay, Khoskhoo said.

Perhaps what is most enduring about the Baha’i Faith, then, can be condensed into Hagigi’s candid conclusion about the human race: “We are all human beings, we should love each other, because we are made of the same essence.”

[Posted on http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/stories/2009/aug/17/baha-hope-change-perspective-their-faith/]

“In the files, in the case basically, there is nothing, no reason that basically convicts them,” said Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The trial will begin Tuesday despite the fact that one of their lawyers is behind bars and Ebadi is outside the country.

Other attorneys can be appointed, Hassan Haddad of the Prosecutor’s Office in Tehran told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

But the court must recognize the replacements, who are colleagues of Ebadi at her Tehran-based Defenders of Human Rights Center, not appoint other lawyers, Ebadi said.

The imprisoned lawyer, Abdolfattah Soltani, is a well-known advocate with the human rights center. He was arrested in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election and is being held at Evin prison, the same place where his clients are detained, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights.

Read full article at:  CNN

All have been held without official charges, although reports through the semi-official ISNA news agency state that the cases would be sent to the revolutionary courts with accusations of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities, and propaganda against the Islamic republic.” A fourth charge of “corruption on earth” has also been mentioned. 

As the profiles will show, all have served Iranian society and also the Baha’i community extensively.  As well, like most Iranian Baha’is, they have all experienced varying degrees of persecution since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979. 

In these profiles, there are a number of references to the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE).  The BIHE was established by Baha’is in the late 1980s as an alternative institution of higher education after Baha’i youth were banned from public and private universities in Iran in the early 1980s.  Accordingly, many of the Friends or their family members received education from the BIHE or its adjunct, the Advanced Baha’i Studies Institute (ABSI), or they have contributed to its work as lecturers or instructors.

In recounting the voluntary service these individuals rendered to the Baha’i community, there are also references to various institutions, such as national or local governing councils, known as Spiritual Assemblies, various committees, or the Auxiliary Board, which comprises a group of individuals appointed to inspire, encourage, and promote learning.  Most of these institutions have since been banned or dissolved in Iran because of government persecution.

The Friends are listed in alphabetical order by their last name.

Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi – arrested 14 May 2008 at her home in Tehran

Fariba Kamalabadi, 46, a developmental psychologist and mother of three, was denied the chance to study at a public university as a youth because of her Baha’i belief. Because of her volunteer work for the Baha’i community, she was arrested twice in recent years and held for periods of one and two months respectively before her arrest and imprisonment last May.

Mrs. Kamalbadi was born in Tehran on 12 September 1962. An excellent student, she graduated from high school with honors but was nevertheless barred from attending university. Instead, in her mid-30s, she embarked on an eight-year period of informal study and ultimately received an advanced degree in developmental psychology from the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education, an alternative institution established by the Baha’i community of Iran to provide higher education for its young people.

Mrs. Kamalabadi married fellow Baha’i Ruhollah Taefi in 1982. They have three children. Varqa Taefi, about 24, received a doctoral degree in political science and international relations in the United Kingdom and is currently continuing his research in China. Alhan Taefi, 23, has studied psychology at ABSI. Taraneh Taefi, 14, is a junior high school student in Tehran.

Mrs. Kamalabadi’s experience with persecution extends beyond her immediate situation. Her father was fired from his job as physician in the government health service in the 1980s because he was a Baha’i, and he was later imprisoned and tortured.

Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani – arrested 14 May 2008 at his home in Tehran.

Jamaloddin Khanjani, 75, is a once-successful factory owner who lost his business after the 1979 Islamic revolution because of his belief in the Baha’i Faith – and who then spent most of the 1980s on the run under the threat of death from Iranian authorities.

Born 27 July 1933 in the city of Sangsar, Mr. Khanjani grew up on a dairy farm in Semnan province and never obtained more than a high school education. Yet his dynamic personality soon led to a successful career in industrial production – and as a Baha’i leader.

In his professional career, he has worked as an employee of the Pepsi Cola Company in Iran, where he was a purchasing supervisor. He later left Pepsi Cola and started a charcoal production business. Later he established a brick-making factory, which was the first automated such factory in Iran, ultimately employing several hundred people.

In the early 1980s, he was forced to shut down that factory and abandon it, putting most of his employees out of work, because of the persecution he faced as a Baha’i. The factory was later confiscated by the government.

In his career of voluntary service to his religious community, Mr. Khanjani was at various points a member of the local spiritual assembly of Isfahan, a regional level Auxiliary Board member, and, in the early 1980s, a member of the so-called “third” National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Iran – a group that in 1984 saw four of its nine members executed by the government.

After that, Mr. Khanjani was able to establish a mechanized farm on properties owned by his family. Nevertheless, authorities placed many restrictions on him, making it difficult to do business. These restrictions extended to his children and relatives, and included refusing loans, closing their places of business, limiting their business dealings, and banning travel outside the country.

Mr. Khanjani married Ms. Ashraf Sobhani in the mid-1950s. They have four children. Farida Khanjani, 51, is a chiropractor working in China. Maria Khanjani, about 49, an artist who is married with two children and residing in Tehran. Mr. Alaeddin Khanjani, about 48, an optometrist residing in Tehran, who is married with two children. And Mrs. Emilia Khanjani, about 45, who is married with two children and resides in Tehran.

Mr. Khanjani was arrested and imprisoned at least three times before his current incarceration. After years on the run, he was arrested and imprisoned for two months in the late 1980s. During this period of detention, he was intensely questioned. During those interrogations, however, he was able to make considerable headway in convincing authorizes of the non-threatening nature of the Baha’i Faith and he, along with many others, were subsequently released.

Mr. Afif Naemi – arrested 14 May 2008 at his home in Tehran

Afif Naemi, 47, is an industrialist who was unable to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor because as a Baha’i he was denied access to a university education. Instead, he diverted his attention to business, one of the few avenues of work open to Baha’is, taking over his father-in-law’s blanket and textile factory.

He was born on 6 September 1961 in Yazd. His father died when he was three and he was raised in part by his uncles. While still in elementary school, he was sent to live with relatives in Jordan and, although he started with no knowledge of Arabic, he soon rose to the top of his class.

He has long been active in volunteer Baha’i service. He has taught Baha’i children’s classes, conducted classes for adults, taught at the BIHE, and been a member of the Auxiliary Board, an appointed position which serves principally to inspire, encourage, and promote learning among Baha’is.

He married Ms. Shohreh Khallakhi in the early 1980s. They have two sons, Fareed Naimi, 27, who is married and a graduate of the ABSI, and Sina Naimi, 22, who has studied music.

Mr. Saeid Rezaie – arrested 14 May 2008 at his home in Tehran. 

Saeid Rezaie, 51, is an agricultural engineer who has run a successful farming equipment business in Fars Province for more than 20 years. He is also known for his extensive scholarship on Baha’i topics, and is the author of several books.

Born in Abadan on 27 September 1957, Mr. Rezaie spent his childhood in Shiraz, where he completed high school with distinction. He then obtained a degree in agricultural engineering from Pahlavi University in Shiraz, attending with the help of a scholarship funded from outside the country.

In 1981, he married Ms. Shaheen Rowhanian. They have three children, two daughters and a son. Martha, 24, is studying library science. Ma’man, 21, is studying architecture. Payvand, 12, is in his second year of middle school.

Mr. Rezaie has actively served the Baha’i community since he was a young man. He taught Baha’i children’s classes for many years, and served the Baha’i Education and Baha’i Life Institutes. He was also a member of the National Education Institute.

He is a scholar and an author, and he has served as an academic adviser to Baha’i students.

During the early 1980s, when persecution of Baha’is was particularly intense and widespread, Mr. Rezaie moved to northern Iran and worked as a farming manager for a time. Later he moved to Kerman and worked as a carpenter and at other odd jobs in part because of the difficulties Baha’is faced in finding formal employment or operating businesses.

In 1985, he opened an agricultural equipment company with a Baha’i friend in Fars Province. That company prospered and won wide respect among farmers in the region.

He has experienced various forms of persecution for his Baha’i belief, including an arrest and detention in 2006 that led to 40 days in solitary confinement.

His two daughters were among 54 Baha’i youth who were arrested in Shiraz in May 2006 while engaged in a humanitarian project aimed at helping underprivileged young people. They were later released but three of their colleagues were sentenced to four years in prison on false charges and are currently incarcerated in Shiraz.

Mrs. Mahvash Sabet – arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008.

Mahvash Sabet, 55, is a teacher and school principal who was dismissed from public education for being a Baha’i. For the last 15 years, she has been director of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, which provides alternative higher education for Baha’i youth. She also served as secretary to the Friends.

Born Mahvash Shahriyari on 4 February 1953 in Ardestan, Mrs. Sabet moved to Tehran when she was in the fifth grade. In university, she studied psychology, obtaining a bachelor’s degree.

She began her professional career as a teacher and also worked as a principal at several schools. In her professional role, she also collaborated with the National Literacy Committee of Iran. After the Islamic revolution, however, like thousands of other Iranian Baha’i educators, she was fired from her job and blocked from working in public education.

It was after this that she became director of the BIHE, where she also has taught psychology and management.

She married Siyvash Sabet on 21 May 1973. They have a son, Masrur Sabet, 33, and a daughter, Nega Sabet, 24, both born in Hamadan.

While all of the other Friends were arrested at their homes in Tehran on 14 May 2008, Mrs. Sabet was arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008. Although she resides in Tehran, she had been summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer questions related to the burial of an individual in the Baha’i cemetery in that city.

Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli – arrested 14 May 2008 at his home in Tehran

Behrouz Tavakkol, 57, is a former social worker who lost his government job in the early 1980s because of his Baha’i belief. Prior to his current imprisonment, he has also experienced intermittent detainment and harassment and, three years ago, he was jailed for four months without charge, spending most of the time in solitary confinement.

Born 1 June 1951 in Mashhad, Mr.Tavakkoli studied psychology in university and then completed two years of service in the army, where he was a lieutenant. He later took additional training and then specialized in the care of the physically and mentally handicapped, working in a government position until his firing in 1981 or 1982.

Mr. Tavakkoli married Ms. Tahereh Fakhri Tuski at the age of 23. They have two sons, Naeim and Nabil. Naeim, 31, currently lives in Canada with his wife where he works as a civil engineer. Nabil, 24, is currently studying architecture at the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education

Mr. Tavakkoli was elected to the local Baha’i governing council in Mashhad in the late 1960s or early 1970s while a student at the university there, and he later served on another local Baha’i council in Sari before such institutions were banned in the early 1980s. He also served on various youth committees, and, later, during the early 1980s he was appointed to the Auxiliary Board. He was appointed to the Friends group in the late 1980s.

To support himself and his family after he was fired from his government position, Mr. Tavakkoli established a small millwork carpentry shop in the city of Gonbad. There he also established a series of classes in Baha’i studies for adults and young people.

He has been periodically detained by the authorities. Among the worst of these incidents was three years ago when he was held incommunicado for 10 days by intelligence agents, along with fellow Friends’ member Fariba Kamalabadi. He was then held for four months and during that confinement developed serious kidney and orthotic problems.

Mr. Vahid Tizfahm – arrested 14 May 2008 at his home in Tehran

Vahid Tizfahm, 37, is an optometrist and owner of an optical shop in Tabriz, where he lived until early 2008, when he moved to Tehran.

He was born 16 May 1973 in the city of Urumiyyih. He spent his childhood and youth there and, after receiving his high school diploma in mathematics, he went to Tabriz at the age of 18 to study to become an optician. He later also studied sociology at the Advanced Baha’i Studies Institute (ABSI).

At the age of 23, Mr. Tizfahm married Furuzandeh Nikumanesh. They have a son, Samim, who is now nine years old and in the fourth grade.

Since his youth, Mr. Tizfahm has served the Baha’i community in a variety of capacities. At one time he was a member of the Baha’i National Youth Committee. Later, he was appointed to the Auxiliary Board, an advisory group that serves to uplift and inspire Baha’i communities at the regional level. He has also taught local Baha’i children’s classes. He was appointed to the Friends in 2006.

[Republished based on:  http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/1116]