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

Two waves of arrests near Tehran happened within days of each other, and while most of those detained – all converts from Islam – were held just a day for questioning, a total of eight Christians still remain in prison. 

On July 31 police raided a special Christian meeting 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Tehran in the village of Amameh in the area of Fashan. A Compass source said about 24 Christians, all converts from Islam, had gathered in a private home. In the afternoon police squads in both plain clothes and uniform raided and arrested everyone present.

Read full Story at Compass Direct News

           The first is a memorandum to government offices and agencies written by Mr. Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who served as the fifth and last Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989, before the constitutional changes which removed the post of prime minister:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir-Hossein_Mousavi.

            The second document is written by Hojjat ol-Eslam Seyyed Mohammad Ali Abtahi who is an Iranian theologian, scholar and chairman of the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue. He is a former vice president of Iran and a close associate of former President Mohammad Khatami:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad-Ali_Abtahi

First Document

In The Name of God

Section seven/Minorities 

Number 11-4462

February 1, 1989

Memorandum to all Ministries, Organizations, Government Agencies, Islamic Revolutionary Foundations, and Governors of all Provinces across the country:

Based on the reports received, there have been no coordinated, unified instructions for confronting members of the misguided Baha’i sect available to the executive branch .  Therefore, with the approval of the respected President of the Islamic Republic, it is necessary that all ministries, organizations, government agencies, Islamic revolutionary foundations and governors of all provinces across the country to implement the guidelines outlined below as the official policy of the government.

Spies should be sternly confronted based on established laws and regulations, but with respect to other citizens, regardless of their beliefs, they should be treated as ordinary citizens in a manner consistent with the latter part of Article 23 of the Constitution.  However, attempts should be made to correct their beliefs.

No official or representative of the Islamic Republic is permitted to deprive citizens of their civil or social rights unless they have been proven to be spies, or as stipulated by laws established by the official legal authorities of the country.

It should be noted that based on Article 13 of the Constitution, Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian Iranians are the only religious minorities that are free to practice their religious duties within the framework of the laws of the country.  They are permitted to conduct their personal lives and activities based on their respective religious laws and ordinances.

Mir Hussein Mousavi

Prime Minister

Second Document

The weighty responsibility of supervising the implementation of the constitution

In The Name of God

Number 80-7662

December 31, 2001

Dearly esteemed brother, Mr. Sayed Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

With Greetings:

Based on a report presented at the official meeting of the respected Committee of the Islamic Parliament on December 30, 2001, which I attended, with respect to principals 88 and 90 of the Constitution, some of the Baha’is employed in government offices and agencies will lose their rights as citizens of the country due to their belief and their association with the Baha’i religion.

I remind you that on February 1, 1989, the respected former Prime Minister [Mir Hussein Mousavi] with the approval of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a memorandum to all ministries, organizations, government agencies, Islamic revolutionary foundations, and governors of all provinces across the country indicating:

“No official or representative of the Islamic Republic is permitted to deprive citizens of their civil or social rights unless they have been proven to be spies, or as stipulated by laws established by the official legal authorities of the country.”

By presenting the above-mentioned background information and with respect to Article 23 of Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, your views and recommendations as the President of the country and the authority responsible for the implementation of the Constitution will provide us with guidance regarding the necessity of considering the civil rights of the Baha’i sect workforce.

Signed

Seyyed Mohammad Ali Abtahi

Editor’s Note

By Dr. Michael Karlberg

As you know, one year ago, seven Iranian Baha’is were arrested and imprisoned for the crime of believing that there is only one God; that all of the world’s great religions spring from this same Divine Source and have all contributed to humanity’s collective spiritual evolution; and that the most important spiritual lesson humanity is facing in this day is the need to recognize our unity and interdependence – across all of the lines that have historically divided us – so that we can create a new social order based on the principle of the oneness of humanity.

For holding these beliefs, these seven Baha’is that we are remembering tonight have been charged with the crime of “spreading corruption on earth” and they face possible execution.  Over 200 Iranian Baha’is have been killed by the Iranian government since the revolution in 1979, as a result of similar charges.  Many of us know the stories of some of these Baha’is.  For instance, one story that stands out most of our memories is the story of Mona Mahmudnizhad, a 17-year old girl who was arrested 26 years ago this month, and was hung in the dead of night, after watching nine other Baha’i women being hung for the same crime – being a Baha’i.

But these persecutions trace back much deeper than the current regime in Iran.  One hundred and fifty seven years ago, the founder of the Baha’i Faith – Baha’u'llah – who was the author of the beliefs for which those we are remembering tonight were persecuted, was himself arrested and thrown in a dark underground pit for four months to languish near death, and then sent into a forty year-long imprisonment and exile that would last until his death.  One hundred and fifty nine years ago, the herald of the Baha’i Faith – the Bab – was likewise arrested, imprisoned, and executed by a firing squad of 750 riflemen, for proclaiming the birth of this Faith.

In the period from the execution of the Bab to the arrest of the seven Baha’i friends one year ago over twenty thousand believers have been killed in the most brutal and inhumane ways; many more have had their property plundered, their livelihoods taken from them, their gravesites desecrated, and their holy places destroyed.  Baha’i students have been denied access to higher education.  Baha’i children have been vilified in their schools.  And all Iranian Baha’is have been systematically vilified from the pulpit and through the media.

It is no easy thing to be a Baha’i in Iran.

But I am not here today to solicit your pity on behalf of the Iranian Baha’is.  I want to put their suffering in a larger context so that you can understand the purpose of this suffering – and why the Bahá’ís accept these hardships with patience and long-suffering.

As I’ve already mentioned, Baha’is believe in the oneness of humanity.  But this concept of oneness is not merely a vague or naïve expression of idealism.  It is a social reality that Baha’is all around the world are actively and intelligently working to create.  Baha’is are working to create this reality through the moral and spiritual education of children, through the spiritual empowerment of adolescents, and through training processes that foster the capabilities for community service in youth and adults.  Baha’is are working to create this reality through inclusive worship with people of all Faiths, through social action directed at the betterment of our society, through the construction of a new model of participatory governance that is unifying rather than divisive, and through attention to the underlying spiritual disciplines – such as prayer and meditation, fasting, and calling oneself to account each day – that are essential to processes of deep personal and social transformation.

If you step back and look at all of these processes as a whole, you can see that they constitute an approach to social change – or a model of social change – directed at bringing about the oneness of humanity.

Skeptics might ask: will it work?  Ultimately, there is only one way to find out.  The approach has to be tried.  The experiment has to be run.

This is what the Baha’is are doing all over the world, in ever-growing numbers.  They are engaged in a vast social experiment, testing the hypothesis that humanity can learn to live as one family, in a single social order, characterized by unity and justice.  It will take many generations before any conclusions can be drawn about the success of this vast social experiment.  But the early results, in my opinion, are promising.  And the experiment warrants the attention of anyone interested in peace and social justice.

But what about those seven Baha’is languishing in an Iranian prison, who we are here tonight to remember?  It might seem, on the surface that the experiment is not working so well for them.  Clearly they are suffering deeply, and their lives are at great risk, just like so many Baha’is before them.

When I first began writing and speaking out about the Baha’is in Iran, and the suffering they are experiencing, some people asked me: Why don’t the Baha’is in Iran fight back?  Why aren’t they willing to confront their oppressors by organizing politically?  Or by engaging in acts of civil disobedience?  And more recently, people might ask: Why are the Baha’is of Iran not taking to the streets in protest – like their fellow citizens this past week following the Iranian election?  After all, there are over 300,000 Baha’is in Iran.

That’s a small army – if it was mobilized in opposition to the current regime.

To answer these questions, we need to look closer at the Baha’i approach to social change.  The Baha’i approach to social change has one more element that needs to be carefully examined to fully understand what is going on.

If the goal of the Baha’i Faith is to bring about the oneness of humanity – to promote unity across all of the lines that have historically divided humans from one another – clearly this cannot be accomplished through methods that are divisive or adversarial, because the means would not be consistent with the ends.  Therefore violent revolution is not an option for Baha’is.  But neither is non-violent confrontation.  Confrontation of any form is divisive and incompatible with the goal of unity.

Furthermore, the methods of non-violent confrontation were tried by others throughout the twentieth century.  These methods led to some significant social advances, such as independence in India and advances in the field of civil rights in this country.  But these methods have proven to be limited because the methods, in themselves, do not construct lasting alternatives to the oppressive systems they seek to replace.  After the non-violent independence movement in India threw off the oppressive yoke of the British empire, the country descended into a sectarian bloodbath in which millions were killed and millions more were turned into refugees.  After the non-violent civil rights movement in the US threw off the Jim Crow laws in the south, racism assumed more subtle expressions – even as the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people in this country created other forms of widespread oppression.

In this regard, while the methods of non-violent confrontation have led to some remarkable achievements, they are arguably reaching a point of diminishing returns, and it is unlikely that these methods alone can lead us to the world of unity and justice we seek.

In this context, Baha’is are pioneering a radical model of social change that is unifying rather than divisive, that focuses on constructing the framework of a new social order, and that works even in the face of violent oppression.  If I could describe this model in one phrase, I would call it “constructive resilience” (note: this phrase was used by the Universal House of Justice in a letter to the Baha’i students deprived of access to higher education in Iran, dated 9 September 2007).

The model is constructive because all of the energy of the Baha’i community goes into constructing a new social order, rather than attacking or tearing down the old order or those who benefit from it.  It is resilient because it has proven itself capable of withstanding the most violent opposition.  The Baha’i community bends, but never breaks.  It is like a palm tree that can withstand the hurricane winds that assail it from time to time, while the tree continues to grow, and thrive, and ultimately yield its fruit.

This model of constructive resilience is already proving itself to be remarkably effective.  It enables the Baha’i community to survive its birth in Iran, in the face of immediate, brutal, and sustained violence directed against it.  From those humble origins the community has now taken root in every nation on earth. Its steadily growing membership numbers in the millions and in its diversity, the international Baha’i community has become a microcosm of humanity.

With the Iranian revolution in 1979, a fresh wave of violent persecution was unleashed on the Baha’i community there.  Since then the principled response of the Iranian Baha’i community has attracted the admiration of many Iranians.  And it has denied the authorities any pretext with which to launch a much more violent, genocidal attack on the Bahá’ís.

Meanwhile, the worldwide Baha’i community has been inspired to new heights of achievement by the courageous and principled example of the Iranian Baha’is.  This worldwide community has also been galvanized in support of their Iranian brothers and sisters and it has been able to shine a spotlight on the situation in Iran.  As a result, governments and leaders of thought throughout the world have appealed for justice on behalf of the Baha’is of Iran.  Countless resolutions of support have been passed by United Nations agencies, national governments, and international human rights organizations – and they have had a positive effect.  A growing number of Iranian citizens outside and even inside Iran are also beginning to appeal for justice on behalf of the Baha’is – often at great personal risk.

Meanwhile, also inside Iran, every effort the government makes to eradicate the Baha’i community spurs the development of creative, constructive responses.  For instance, when the authorities denied Baha’i students access to higher education, the Baha’i community created a decentralized virtual university.  It operates in Baha’i living rooms across the country, and over the internet.  Top faculty from inside Iran and around the world offer over a dozen university degrees that are recognized by prestigious graduate programs in many other countries.

This is constructive resilience.  This is a force for progress that cannot be arrested and will not be denied. This is the big picture.

With this picture in mind, I want to turn our attention back to the seven friends in Iran who are languishing in prison, awaiting their sentence, with little hope of a fair trial.

These seven Baha’is are willing to pay the highest price of all – they are willing to sacrifice their own lives – for the cause of the oneness of humanity.  But these sacrifices may no longer be necessary because humanity is arriving at a new stage in its collective development.  All around the world, people of conscience are recognizing that injury to one means injury to all, and that justice must become the reigning principle of human affairs.  In this regard, the oneness of humanity is fast becoming a universally accepted ideal.

The Baha’is in Iran have made tremendous sacrifices, for over 150 years, to advance this ideal.  It is time for humanity to lift the burden of sacrifice from their shoulders.  It is time for people everywhere to speak out with a unified voice and say: enough is enough.

These oppressions can no longer be tolerated – in any country, against any people.

Enough is enough.

So I urge all of you here to use every channel of communication and legitimate influence at your disposal to speak out.  Speak out to your elected representatives and to your fellow citizens.  Speak out through conversations, and emails, and letters, and the media.  Speak out on behalf of our common humanity.  Enough is enough.

Through their sacrifices, the Baha’is in Iran are offering humanity an opportunity to take the next step down the path toward unity and justice.  It is time for humanity to move beyond the point of leaving persecuted and oppressed minorities to struggle in isolation for their own survival.  It is time for all people of conscience, everywhere, to begin to speak out, with a unified voice, in support of the victims of oppression, everywhere.  This is what the oneness of humanity looks like. This is where we are headed.

The Baha’is in Iran have made such painful sacrifices, for over 150 years, to bring about the reality of the oneness of humanity.  It is time for humanity to lift the burden of sacrifice from their shoulders.

[Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2009, under the title, “Why do Bahais NOT go on strike or demonstrate?” at: http://hisoka7.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-do-bahais-not-go-on-strike-or.html.]

By Dr. Majid Naficy

Recently, a letter was published over the signature of 42 Iranian intellectuals addressed to the Baha’i community and proclaiming “one and a half century of persecution and our silence is enough”.  The title of the letter was We are Ashamed.

Over a month ago, Mr. Khosro Shemiranie sent this letter to me to sign.  Even though from the age of fourteen I have been saddened by what Baha’is have been going through and I have written about it, I responded that I could not sign it since it was instigated by a “feeling of shame” and “collective sin” and not “seeking justice and freedom of conscience”.  I added, “If you reword this letter in which the phrase ‘We are Ashamed’ is repeated thirteen times and change it to ‘We arise to defend the rights of Baha’is’, you can be sure that I will sign it without any hesitation.”

Now that this open letter has been published and broadly disseminated, and many others have joined as signatories, I find it necessary to write my reasons for not signing it.  I hope by launching this discussion, I can bring to light the tyranny and persecutions to which Baha’is have been subjected during the rule of the three regimes of Qajar, Pahlavi and Khomeini over the past 160 years.

1. My First Encounter with Baha’is

The first time I got to know a Baha’i was in Sa’di High School in Isfahan, when I was in the seventh grade.  His name was Golestan Mossafaei, and he was in the eleventh grade.  I met him at our school’s Literature Club.  The club was managed by Mohammad Hoquqi, our teacher and resident poet.  This club did not last long; it shut down under the pressure imposed by prejudiced school officials.

Golestan always had a sweet smile, and sometimes he composed poems.  A few times I went to his house, which was located close to a stream in Darvazeh Hasanabad.  It was a modest house with one room. Even that room was barely furnished.  Golestan explained how their house had been set on fire a few times, by an anti-Baha’i group called Hojjatiyeh.

Flyers had also been thrown into their yard, pressuring them to leave their residence.

I felt deeply sad hearing about the tyranny inflicted on Golestan and his family.

I wrote a short story about it, and read it to members of my literary circle “Jong-e Isfahan”.

The vice principal of the school was furious about my friendship with Golestan, and told my father that Majid had been entrapped by Baha’is.  My father gave me a worn-out booklet called “Memoires of Prince Dolgoruki”, the Russian Ambassador in Iran from 1846-1854, who allegedly claimed that the Baha’i movement had been started by Russians in order to destroy Iran and the Shiah sect of Islam.  My mother forbade me from having a friendship with Golestan Mossafaei.  She made such a monster of Golestan that whenever my four year old sister was mad at me, she would say, “Get lost Mofassaaei”.

School teachers collaborated in pressuring me, and failed me in “calligraphy” when I was in grade 7!  I was a bright student who had passed grade six with an average above 90.  In the eighth grade, I was given failing grades in “calligraphy”, “religion”, “algebra” and “geometry”, and had to retake the exams for these subjects at the end of summer. I was not given passing grades and had to repeat grade 8 the following year.  This was the first big failure of my life, and taught me a lesson in resilience.  I left day school, and enrolled in a night school so that I would be able to complete two grades in one year.

Sa’di High School was run by a religious mafia, composed of a few teachers and a fanatically religious vice principal.  At the top of the group, there was a physics teacher whose name was Nuri and looked like a shopkeeper in the old bazaar.  His shirts were buttoned up to the chin, and his face was always unshaven.  He was the one who shut down our literature club, with the excuse that the organizer of the club disseminated the atheistic views of the prominent novelist, Sadeq Hedayat (1903-51), and caused students to drift away from Islam.  Two mullahs by the names of Rohani and Faqih-Imami were our “religion” teachers.  Another Mullah named Fazaeli, with good penmanship, taught us calligraphy. Even though he had a close relationship with the Shah’s appointed rulers in Isfahan, he also had close ties with our school religious mafia.[1]

After two years of studying at night school, I enrolled in another high school called Harati. That school was not free of staunch religious, fanatical teachers either.

I remember on cold winter days, as we heard the school bell ring, we had to stand still on the spot and listen to Mr. Parvaresh.  After the revolution when he was appointed a Minister, we found out that he had been a member of an anti-Baha’i group [Hojjatieh Society -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hojjatieh].  He would sprinkle his religious speech with aphorism from Imam Ali in three languages, English, Arabic and Persian, showing off his talent!

2. Shaykhis and Mullahs

About the same time, impressed by the book Tat Neshinha-ye Boluk Zahra [The Tat People of the Zahra County] written by Jalal Al-Ahmad (1923-69), I became interested in the rural life of Iran and in traveling to a small village called Jandaq situated on the edge of Dasht- Namak desert.  Inhabitants of this village told me that they were followers of a sect called Shaykhi Baqiri.  This enticed me to started reading Shaykhi books.  I realized that the teachings of Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa’i (1753-1826) and his successor, Siyyid Kazim Rashti (1793-1843) had been instrumental for the appearance of Ali-Muhammad the Bab (1819-50) [co-founder of the Baha'i Faith].

After the death of Siyyid Kazim Rashti, one of the Qajar Princes, Aqa Karim Khan Kermani (1810-1871) became the Shaykhi leader.  In order to stop his followers from accepting the Bab, he turned into the most active anti-Babi mullah of his time.

Shaykhis grew in number and influence under him and his heir’s leadership.  Even Mozaffari’d-Din Shah considered himself a Shaykhi.

After Karim Khan Kermani, the Shaykhi school of thought was divided into two branches.

One branch that was in the majority considered Karim Khan’s son as their leader and the Fourth Pillar (that is, the intermediary between the Hidden Imam and his followers, which is similar to Khomeini’s idea of Velayet-e Faqih, “rule by jurists”).  The other branch, under the leadership of Mohammad-Baqir Hamadani, rejected the heredity nature of the Fourth Pillar.  They became known as Shaykhi Baqiris.

After studying Shaykhi books, I concluded that some of Shaykh Ahmad’s views seemed more logical than the views of his Shiah counterparts.  For example, resurrection at the Day of Judgment (known as Hurqalya) was the resurrection in a softer and more refined form– not a physical reconstruction.  I found the Babi movement attractive only to the extent that it was egalitarian and the fact that a courageous female poet by the name of Tahirih Zarrin-Taj (1814 or 1817-1852) was one of its prominent followers.  Other than that, from a young age, I was not interested in religious ideology.

My paternal grandfather, Abu-Torab, who had left the city of Kerman to settle in Pudeh, a small village near Isfahan, did not accept the heredity branch of the Shaykhis.  Going through my father’s library, I came across a few manuscripts of his grandfather, and once briefly read through one which explored the philosophical issue of free will versus predestination.

My father believed that there were no differences between Shaykhi and currently practiced Shiah schools, and that it was just a matter of whom each group considered to be their Source of Emulation.  However, I had the feeling that my parents were afraid of becoming known as Shaykhis and kept secret their meetings for the purpose of studying and discussing the books of Kermani and Hamadani.

Among the views of Shaykhi Baqiris, my father liked their distrust of traditional mullahs. Among contemporary Islamic thinkers, my father liked Ali Shariati (1933-77), an Iranian scholar who was against the cast of clergy.  I remember my father, while driving for picnics on Fridays, used to sing a folk song making fun of mullahs:

“I am a mullah, a mullah / Stayed overnight in a stable / A flea came and bit me / I kicked my quilt off/ Burnt my cot / And broke my teaspoon / I am a mullah, a mullah / Stayed overnight in a stable”.

In Iranian folktales, a mullah was often pictured as a “cunning fox”, and as a creature obsessed with food, overeating and sexual excesses, while pretending to be pious and self righteous.  Khomeini was well aware of how mullahs were portrayed and their reputation.  After the revolution, imitating his teacher, Abdul-Karim Haeri-Yazdi, Khomeini, in one of his speeches, changed the famous proverb “How easy to become a mullah, how hard to become a human!” to “How hard to become a mullah, impossible to become a human”.  He was trying to influence the subconscious of the masses and to overcome their innate sense of mistrust and resentment towards the mullahs.

3. From Tahirih to Ezzat

From 1964 to 1981, occasionally I came upon or heard about Baha’is.  For example, I heard about Bahram Sadeqi (1936-86), a renowned storywriter from Najafabad who was a Baha’i.

However, it was on September 17, 1981, when I found myself again in a situation in which I felt that I had the same destiny as Baha’is.

It was over two years since the revolution in Iran.  Fundamentalist militant rulers were violently persecuting and executing members of the Iranian National Front and the leftist organizations.  These groups were the ones that had played a crucial role in uprooting the Pahlavi regime.

On September 16, my wife and comrade, Ezzat Tabaian, left the house.  That night, she phoned a friend and hurriedly told him that while being chased by the Islamic Militia, she had fallen and broken her pelvic bone.  My wife asked him to contact me and tell me to quickly destroy all “incriminating evidence” in the house.  The next day, the same friend asked if I had a safe place to spend the night, knowing that our home would not be spared from attacks.  When I replied that I had nowhere to go, he suggested a large house on Lashkar square that belonged to his old aunt.

I knew his aunt was a Baha’i, and her house would not be a safe place either.  However, we had no choice but to go to his aunt’s house.  A deft servant opened the door and led us in.  The old aunt told us how Islamic forces had arrested the last members of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Tehran.  She was worried about her own safety as well.

That night, I had the strange feeling that Tahirih, the courageous Babi female poet was talking to me from the edge of the well into which she had been thrown after being strangled, 150 years before.  I was seeing a connection between Tahirih and the painful fate of my wife in the claws of her tormentors.  A few years later on September 18, 1986, I wrote a poem, Raftam Golat Bechinam [I Went to Find your Flower] published in a collection of poems under the same title, about the events of three days after the arrest of my wife Ezzat. The second part of the poem relates to the old Baha’i woman who offered me her home as refuge:

I have hardly fled

The slaughter place of a Marxist

To take refuge in a Baha’i’s.

Is there a lesson here for me?

In the deserted courtyard

Where the yellow leaves rustle

And the lonely goldfish

Circles in the green water,

A secret is revealed to me:

The bloody body of Zarrin Taj is still

Hanging over the prison’s well.

- Have you seen my Isaac?

The old building echoes my words.

“Ezzat”s and “Tahirih”s had the same destiny.  On January 7, 1982, Ezzat and another leftist woman, along with fifty leftist men, faced the firing squad.  Their bodies were dumped in the Khavaran cemetery located southeast of Tehran.  Two months before that, I had gone to the same cemetery with my wife to visit the grave of a relative, Sadeq Okhovat, who had faced the firing squad.  At that time, there were perhaps fewer than 30 graves at Khavaran.  The second visit was for my wife, and I was accompanied by my brother-in-law, Hosein Okhovat-Moqadam.  However, when Hosein was executed a few weeks later, I could not bring myself to visit the Khavaran cemetery again.

Later I learned that three days before my wife was executed — that is, on January 4, 1982 — six members of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Tehran had been executed and their bodies had been dumped in the same cemetery.

On January 2009, this cemetery was demolished by the Islamic Government of Iran.

It was the resting place of 50 Baha’is, and thousands of other freedom-seeking Iranians.

4. The Test of the Broadmindedness of Iranians

I know about the sufferings endured by Baha’is not only from books, but also from seeing it first hand in my own day-to-day life.  Their sufferings date back to the time of the Shah of Iran, particularly in the 1950s, when with the Shah’s approval and using the national radio, Mohammad-Taqi Falsafi would deliver blistering sermons which provoked mobs to attack Baha’i holy places.

This trend has continued under the present reign of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been governing for the past 30 years, and has executed over 200 Baha’is solely on the ground that they were Baha’is.  Baha’is do not have the slightest basic human or civil rights as Iranian citizens.  In an article which I wrote in 2004 titled “Shirin Ebadi and Freedom of Conscience”, I recognized:

Defending the Baha’is must be considered a litmus test for any intellectual Iranian claiming that they honor human rights. In the Islamic government of Iran, there is no place for any Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, or the like. This is because according to Article 13 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, the only recognized religious minorities are Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian Iranians.

Among the many minority groups that are legally deprived of their right to freedom of conscience, the situation of the Baha’is has been in particular the bleakest.

From the inception of this religion, dating back to the era of Mohammad Shah Qajar, the Iranian Shiah clergy have been leading open attacks on this community [i.e. Babis and Baha’is].  The clergy imagined that the appearance of the Bab robbed them of their messianic claim to the expected Hidden Imam, Who is suppose to appear at the “end of time” to fill the world with justice.  They believe that the appearance of the Bab took away from them the raison d’etre of Shi’ism.

During the final decade of the Shah’s regime, rumors began to be spread by fanatical groups known for their anti-Baha’i stance, aimed at provoking the people with mentally-sick hatred against the Baha’is, that Baha’is were supporters of the Shah.  These false rumors became so widespread that even after the 1979 revolution, when in 1981 the regime began to intensely suppress the opposition including the Baha’is, Iranian intellectuals hesitated to defend the Baha’is against oppression – even when they could see perfectly well that Baha’is were being imprisoned, tortured, and executed merely for being Baha’i.  It is for this reason that I consider the single most important quality of a democratic-minded Iranian is to be a supporter of the right of Baha’is to their religion and not heed the fictitious excuse that “Baha’is are members of a political party and not a true religion”.

5. The Test of the Broadmindedness of Baha’is

After the publication of my article on Shirin Ebadi and the freedom of consciousness referred to above, I was asked: if the test of broadmindedness of an Iranian is in his defense of the rights of Baha’is, then what defines the broadmindedness of a Baha’i?

In my opinion, a democratic Iranian Baha’i must not only defend the rights of all heterodox thinkers in Iran, but must first and foremost defend the rights of the followers of Azal who call themselves by the name Bayani.  Only then can a Baha’i be worthy of the title of free and democratic.

To make this matter more clear, I will explain something that happened in 1987 in Los Angeles.  I was invited to a poetry night, and recited the poem raftam golat bechinam, from which a stanza was quoted above.  Among the attendees was a Baha’i couple.  At that time, in this poem I had used the word Babi instead of Baha’i.  Afterwards, the Baha’i woman asked, “Why did you use the word Babi?  Today there are no Babis and they all have become Baha’is.”

Her question and comment not only demonstrated the narrow-mindedness and exclusivity of some Baha’is towards the minority group of the Babi-Azalis, but it also illustrates the narrow-mindedness of many Iranian leftists, of which I had been one, as well.

At this point is it necessary to briefly look at the history of the emergence of the Babi movement and the divisions that took place within it.

6. The Azalis and the Baha’is

At the age of 24, Ali-Muhammad Shirazi in 1844 declared himself to be the Bab, which means he was the gate to the Promised One of Shia Islam.  He later confirmed that indeed He was the Promised One himself.  Shortly before His execution in 1850 in Tabriz, He named one of His followers, a 14-year-old youth named Mirza Yahya Nuri, to be His successor and gave him the title Subh-i Azal.[2]

After the premiership of Amir Kabir, efforts to eradicate the Babis increased in intensity and many of them were compelled to leave their native land.  In 1863, Mirza Husayn-Ali, known as Baha’u’llah, declared himself to be “He Whom God Shall Make Manifest”, Whose appearance was foretold by the Bab.  Baha’u’llah was a step-brother of Mirza Yahya (Subh-i Azal) and was 13 years his senior.  At the time, both brothers lived in Edirne, a town in the Ottoman Empire.

Mirza Yahya did not accept his brother’s claim and the differences between the two caused enmity and bloodshed among the Babis.  Eventually, in order to alleviate the situation, the Ottoman government was forced to exile Yahya to Cyprus and Baha’u’llah to Palestine.

Edward Browne (1862-1929), an English scholar who visited both brothers, writes about this bloodshed which resembles the enmity between Shiah and Sunni in Islam or Trotsky and Stalin at the time of Bolshevism.[3]

The followers of Baha’u’llah proclaimed their mission to be for the entire world and quickly grew in numbers. However, the followers of the younger brother [Mirza Yahya], returned to or stayed in Iran to fight against the political system and to reduce the influence of the Qajar dynasty.  Two of Mirza Yahya’s sons-in-Law, Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani and Shaykh Ahmad Ruhi, emerged at the forefront of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-11).

They gave their life in this path in Tabriz.  During the 1909 interval in which the Iranian Constitution was suspended, the successor of Mirza Yahya by the name of Yahya Dawlatabadi was collaborating with the prominent writer Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda (1879-1959) to publish the freedom-fighting newspaper Sorush in Istanbul.

Today, Azalis who continue to call themselves Bayani, that is, followers of the book of the Bayan written by the Bab, are a small minority community in Iran.  Because of their practice of dissimulation, they hide their beliefs.  By contrast, the followers of Baha’u’llah have their center in Haifa, have worldwide recognition and number several million.

7. The Dualistic Approach of the Leftist Movement

During the 1970s, leftist intellectuals in Iran revisited the Bab’s movement and grew attracted to it as a social uprising against feudalism — they also acknowledged the contributions of Azali thinkers during the Constitutional Revolution.[4]  However, as Iranian Marxists on one hand did not respect the necessary role of freedom of conscience, and on the other hand believed the fictitious rumors about Baha’i collaboration with the government during the premiership of Amir-Abbas Hoveyda (and the evidence they had in this regard was that the notorious Parviz Sabeti ran the SAVAK’s televised shows), they had a negative view of the Baha’is.  This negative attitude increased, particularly after the revolution.

The Soviet-oriented Tudeh party, which considered itself a main backer of the Islamic regime, started helping the fundamentalist clergy in their anti-Baha’i activities.  As written by Reza Fani-Yazdi, “Suddenly, in spring 1982, the Tudeh party sent a circular letter to all its regional offices throughout the country instructing that all Baha’is were to be expelled from its membership rolls.”[5]

The members of the Tudeh party were asked not only to expel the Baha’is, but also to divulge the identity of any members of the independent leftist groups who were anti-regime.  Though the Tudeh party had played an important role in creating the new Islamic regime, it was not long after the revolution that they fell prey to the oppressive regime they had helped build.

On February 11, 1981, an independent Marxist and anti-establishment group, Peykar Organization had arranged a demonstration in Tehran’s Enqelab Square to mark the anniversary of the anti-Shah revolution.  There I was identified by two medical students supporters of the Tudeh Party) with whom I had used to go hiking at the time of the Shah.  The Islamic security guards had turned Capri, a movie theatre into a centre for interrogating demonstrators.  They seized me, and were dragging me to the interrogation center when I managed to escape with the help of a few friends who started fighting with the vigilante.  (Two of my rescuers are still alive and live in North California.)  When I made it home, I found my wife Ezzat very worried; she had seen me captured, but had not seen my escape.  Alas, only a few months later it was I who had to witness my wife leaving home and never coming back.

8. Appeal for Justice not Collective Shame

With 300,000 followers in Iran, the Baha’i community is the largest minority group after the Sunni sect of Islam.  Nevertheless, Baha’is are deprived of all basic human and civil rights, including the freedom of belief, access to higher education, and employment in any government sector.

In a secret memorandum issued in 1991 and signed by the leader, Khamenei and President Rafsanjani, the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council instructed all its lower bodies regarding the principle policy of the government towards Baha’is: “prevention of their progress and advancement” at all levels of society.[6]  This was also the policy of Khomeini before and after the revolution.  While residing in Paris in the summer of 1978, Khomeini was interviewed by James Cockrof, a professor at Rutgers University. Khomeini was asked about his stance regarding the Baha’is and whether they would enjoy freedom of belief and action in an Islamic regime. Instead of a direct response, Khomeini stated, “Baha’ism is not a religion.  It is a political party and a misguided sect”. The interviewer again asked if Baha’is would be allowed to practice their religious duties. Khomeini responded, “No”.[7]

In Khomeini’s terse responses, one can find two justifications for the Shiah fundamentalist’s suppression of the Baha’is.  The first justification is that the Baha’i faith is not a religion, but a political party associated with the government of the Shah and colonialism, and which gives support to Israel.  Therefore, the Baha’is should be suppressed for the sake of the country’s security.  The second justification is that the Baha’is are condemned for apostasy.  According to Article 5 of the Criminal Code regarding the “law of apostasy” presented to the Islamic Parliament in February 2008, apostates (which includes the Baha’is) will be sentenced to death if they are male, and life imprisonment if they are female.

The first justification mentioned above is based on collective punishment. That is, if a member of a group is alleged to have committed a crime, then all members of that group, whether male, female, elderly, or child, are guilty through association, and will be subject to punishment.  The second justification is based on sheer disregard for human rights, freedom of belief and of the right to choose a religion or no religion.

This justification has its roots in the obscurantism of the middle ages.

In both the above justifications, the right and individual responsibility is completely absent, and instead emphasis is placed on collective belief and group ideologies.

In contradistinction to the above, if we were to accept the principle that all humans, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, social status and religious belief, are equal before the law and that they have natural rights to freedom of belief, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and such natural liberties, then the above two justifications for oppressing Baha’is and other minorities will have no foundation whatsoever.  Therefore, it is necessary to recognize individual freedom in the country’s Constitution in order to open the door of justice to all Baha’is and other minorities.

This appeal for justice has two inseparable parts:

1. Complete alignment of the country’s Constitution with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations, which calls for the separation of religion and state

2. Activities of the anti-Baha’i group Hojjatiyeh should be considered illegal and forced to end. All those who have been involved in the persecution of Baha’is and other minorities should be brought to justice in a court of law, in the presence of a jury and defense attorneys.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this essay, the greatest shortcoming of the open letter to the Baha’i community of Iran titled “We are Ashamed” is that instead of demanding justice for the Baha’is (that is, insisting that freedom of belief must be enshrined in the Constitution and that anti-Baha’i groups be made illegal), it proposed a collective shame upon all Iranian intellectuals for allowing 150 years of oppression against the Baha’is.  Instead of calling on people to accept human rights, this open letter has established its foundation on collective shame and group repentance.

Without a doubt, when it comes to human and civil rights, the Baha’is of Iran are the most deprived.  As I have mentioned earlier, the test of Iranian broadmindedness must be measured by his sensitivity to the cruelty perpetrated against this group of our countrymen.

However, first, it is incorrect to accuse all intellectuals of “silence against crimes perpetrated against the Baha’is”.  Each person is responsible for his own actions and not for the oversights of others, whether in the past or at the present.  Second, feeling ashamed or guilty for wrongdoings committed in the past is a personal matter and should be sincerely communicated directly to the individuals or families adversely affected by the acts of oppression.  As I wrote in my July 2006 essay titled “Behazin and right of silence” published in “Shahrvand” magazine, I clearly explained that asking individuals to feel ashamed or to repent publicly for their beliefs is an old method of religious inquisition, dating back to the reigns of dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Khomeini.

The main objective of such practices is to undermine and destroy the individual’s self-worth.

A liberated and broadminded intellectual would instead defend the rights of individuals, and would not allow public pressure to curtail individual beliefs and actions.  They would insist on personal responsibility and choice.

Public shaming and public confession is a method used by Franciscan monks in their inquisition period and employed in fanatical environments for the purpose of extracting acknowledgment and breaking down personal will.  In a similar manner, party administrators in the Stalinist era or under Mao’s regime employed “self-critical sessions” which used such techniques, and Khomeini used them in his televised public “confessions”, or for compulsory group meetings in Evin prison.

I say no to the so-called “original sin” of a group.  I say no to metaphoric “baptism” by signing a letter that confesses to shame.  We must fight for the freedom of belief and demand that anti-Baha’i activities be banned in Iran.  Let everyone tell their own personal stories, and if one feels ashamed about keeping silent while crimes were committed, let him or her take personal responsibility and deal with it as he or she sees fit.

20 February 2009

Notes

1. In September 2000 I published my memoir of this period in a detailed essay “avalin-haye man” (My Firsts) in Shahrvand magazine.  This essay has also been included in my book “man khod iran hastam va si-o-panj maqaleh-ye digar” (I am Iran Alone and Thirty-Five other Essays Toronto, Afra-Pegah publishers 2006

2. Dr. Naficy is mistaken in this regard.  While the Bab consented to Baha’u’llah’s request for Mirza Yahya to be named a temporary head of the community, there is no evidence whatsoever that Mirza Yahya was named a successor. The title Subh Azal was not given by the Bab and was self-adopted by Mirza Yahya Nuri. [Translator]

3. For an example of this discussion, refer to Edward Granville Browne, A Year Amongst the Persians, Cambridge University Press, 1927, pp. 559-62.  In that book, Browne refers to the killing of seven Azalis in Akka by the followers of Baha’u’llah.

4. For instance, see Mohammad-Reza Feshahi, Vapasin Junbesh Qurun Vusta’i: Akhbari, Usuli, Shaykhi and the Babi. Javidan Publications, Tehran, 1977.

5. Reza Fani-Yazdi, “Baha’i-setizi Pish va Pas az Enqelab” [Anti-Baha’ism before and after the Revolution”, Iran-Emrooz, 6/11/2008.

6. This document was uncovered by Reynaldo Pohl, the United Nations’ special representative on human rights in Iran, and published by him in his report of 1993: http://bic.org/assets/Pohl%20Iran%20report%20E.CN4.1993.41.pdf.  The passage related to the instructions issued after a joint meeting of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, President of Iran, and the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council is on p. 55, paragraph 310. [Translator]

7. See The Denial of Higher Education to the Baha’is of Iran, by Geoffrey Cameron.

[The Persian version of this essay was first published on Thursday, March 12, 2009, at http://fa.shahrvand.com/2008-07-14-20-49-09/2008-07-14-20-49-46/2284-2009-03-12-17-58-08.  Translation by Iran Press Watch and Dr. Majid Naficy.]

At least 30 members of the Baha’i community are in prison because of their faith, according to the Commission. Dozens are awaiting trial, while others have been arbitrarily sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 months to several years. The 7 Baha’i community leaders remain in prison charged with crimes — such as “insulting religious sanctities” and espionage — that could result in the death penalty. May 14th was the one-year anniversary of their arrest.
The Commission also cited the cases of persecuted Christians in Iran, like Marzieh Esmaeilabad and Maryam Rustampoor. The 2 women werearrested in March for practicing Christianity after authorities raided and confiscated materials from their home. Authorities reportedly have accused them of engaging in anti-government activities, and they are being held in Evin where they face further interrogation.

Sufi Muslims have also been targeted by the Iranian government because of their faith. The Commission reports that in the past year more than a dozen Sufi Muslims, including 6 members of the Gonabadi Dervishes on Kish Island, were arrested; some are still in prison, while the whereabouts of others are unknown.

Most disconcerting, the Iranian Parliament is considering approving draft revisions to the penal code that would make conversion from Shi’a Islam to any other religion (known as apostasy) a crime punishable by death.

In the past, the death penalty has been applied for apostasy at the discretion of judges interpreting Shari’a law, but this punishment was not explicitly codified. But if the proposed law is finalized, this would endanger the lives of many religious minorities, who are considered apostates even if their parents were of the same religious minority.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Iran has ratified, guarantees “the right of thought, conscience and religion,” as well as the right to change religion and “to manifest … religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Felice Gaer, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, expressed disappointment that the Iranian government “will use any pretext, however baseless, to harass and detain those whose religious beliefs differ from those enforced by the state. … Sadly,” said Ms. Gaer, “[Iran's] disregard for its own citizens’ most fundamental rights continues to flout international standards.”

Source: http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2009-05-18-voa6.cfm

Theresa Malinowska

by Theresa Malinowska (Guardian UK)

In Iran, Christians like Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirzadeh face detention without charge, just for practising their beliefs

There’s no shortage of press coverage on Iran. Its ambitious nuclear programme combines with a steady flow of delusional commentary from President Ahmadinejad to ensure it a permanent presence on the international media stage.

What we rarely get to hear about in detail is the damage the Iranian ruling elite causes its own citizens on a daily basis.

Since the Islamic revolution, the 300,000-strong Baha’i community has faced consistent discrimination in Iran. They’ve been the victims of extrajudicial killings and unexplained disappearances. According to the community, 40 Baha’is are currently being detained in prison for no other “crime” than practicing their own beliefs. This number includes members of their national leadership. Baha’is are still banned from receiving higher education.

Although members of historical Christian minorities, such as Armenians, enjoy relative freedom in Iran, the story is different for those who have converted to Christianity from Islam.

Muslim converts to different faiths face intimidation, not only from their own families, but also from the Iranian authorities. They are regularly threatened, assaulted and detained without charges, or even executed. There are roughly 10,000 Christians from Muslim backgrounds in Iran and their experiences have not been very different to those of the Iranian Baha’i community.

Their stories and cries for help regularly get ignored by the international community, despite the fact that the freedom to change religion is clearly enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirzadeh, 30, are currently being held in the notorious Evin prison. These women are both converts to Christianity from Islam, and have been imprisoned without charge since 5 March, when police officers searched their home.

Maryam and Marzieh suffered sleep deprivation as part of the police interrogation process and are now sharing a cell with 27 other women. The women are known to be practicing Christians.

CSW’s research claims that there were more than 22 similar cases of apostates who were arrested and released during 2006. The story is usually the same. The victims are released following hefty bail payments, but are never given the opportunity to challenge their illegal detention. They are then left to patch up their lives and face the social stigma of being “apostates” in their communities.

Life in Iran may get even more challenging for “apostates” in the coming years.

Last October, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill which would make the death penalty compulsory for all male apostates, while female apostates must live out their years in prison. If this bill is passed it will jeopardise the future of all Baha’is and Christian converts in Iran. The bill was hardly mentioned in the international press.

In light of that, there was something deeply ironic about President Ahmadinejad standing at the UN’s recent conference on racism, unashamedly lecturing the world on human rights. It is tragic to see the language of human rights manipulated in this way. Whatever President Ahmadinejad may say, hundreds of thousands of Iranians are having their voices silenced and their dignity destroyed, even as I write.

[Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/09/iran-christianity-conversion]

The systematic persecution of Bahais in Iran intensified in the month of April. Again and again individual Bahais are being arbitrarily arrested. They are sometimes released against a substantial amount of bail money. They are, however, not the only ones affected by state repression; Christians are under unprecedented pressure as well.

The treatment of religious minorities in Iran is a litmus test for society’s freedom there.Iran has a four-class society when it comes to the treatment of religious groups and religious minorities.The Khodi are the recognised Muslims, who identify with the absolute rule of the clergy and submit to their dictatorial demands.In the second class are the less loyal Muslims, who do not accept the totalitarian dictatorship’s religious constitution and advocate a secular democracy.

The third group is composed of the recognised religious minorities of the Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews, who, within the framework of the Islamic legal order, enjoy a lower legal status than Muslims.These minorities are legally discriminated against in many respects – by the blood law, for example. Muslims who have disavowed Islam, called apostates, whether atheists, Christian converts or Bahais, are fundamentally persecuted. One can not consider such a political system to be an open one.

An example of arbitrary rule over Bahais

On 8th of April an agent of the Iranian intelligence service phoned the Vahdat Dana family in Shiraz.Without giving any reason, the agent informed Mrs. Vahdat Dana that her husband was to appear at the Ministry of Information the following morning. Mrs. Dana insisted on a written notification, reported Iran Press Watch.

On 12th of April, as Mr. Vahdat Dana was leaving his house to go to work, agents met him on his doorstep and instructed him to accompany them to the intelligence service’s prison, known as “Pelak 100″, housenumber 100. Mr. Vahdat Dana insisted that he be issued with an arrest warrant.The officials produced a handwritten note that read, “Individuals of interest may be investigated and arrested.”Mr. Vahdat Dana persisted that an official document with his name on it had to be presented before he would voluntarily go to prison.  The officials left for the time being.

Mr. Vahdat Dana immediately wrote a letter to Hojjat-al-Islam Musavi-Tabar, the revolutionary court prosecutor.  In response, the cleric wrote that if “the agents of the Ministry of Information are able to issue a warrant, then Mr. Vahdat Dana must accompany them.”

At 12.30 on 25th of April, the intelligence agents again entered Mr. Vahdat Dana’s house and instructed his wife to call him immediately.They said he had to return home straight away. When Mr. Vahdat Dana arrived home they arrested him and issued a warrant, signed with the name of judge Rezai-Dadyar, on the spot.

Mr. Vahdat Dana suffers from a heart disorder, but is receiving no medical treatment.

Several Bahais were arrested in April: as reported by the Bahai World News Service, on 21st of April Michel Ismaelpur was arrested without a warrant in Mazandaran. On 26th of April Mr. Safaju was arrested in Karaj without any explanation. On 27th of April, Siamak Iqani and Susan Tabianian were arrested in Semnan.

Around 39 Bahais are currently being held in Iranian prisons without charge, solely because of their religion, because they believe in Baha’u'llah, who is a messenger of God for them and who founded the religion in 1863. This is a thorn in the eye of Iran’s state clergy.

On 8th of March 2009, the Islamist “Parliament” passed a budget of 3 million dollars for the country-wide fight against “Bahais, Sufis and devil worshippers”. By “devil worshippers” the Iranian government is referring to the youths who listen, for example, to heavy metal music.The “devil worshippers”, Muslim Sufis and adherents of the Bahai faith, the youngest world religion, all have one thing in common: persecution by the Iranian government.

Arrests of Christians intensifies

As the “Christian Examiner Online” reports, two Christian women were arrested on the accusation of “activities against the government”. The arrested women are evidently in poor health.A Pentecostal church in Tehran was also shut down.Three other Christian men were arrested in this connection as well, also accused of “activities against the government”.

The “International Christian Concern” reported that,”Iranian officials have dramatically stepped up the persecution of Christians after a large number of Muslims converted to Christianity.”In the last year alone, more than 50 Christians were arrested because of their religious conversion.Some of them are said to have been tortured, some to have died in prison as the result of this torture.

International Christian Concern calls attention to the Apostasy Law, which mandates the death penalty for converting from Islam.The Islamic “Parliament’s” final decision on this law is expected in autumn of this year.

Wahied is a Senior Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels.

[Source: http://europeandemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13420&catid=4&Itemid=22]

Religious freedom conditions in Iran have “worsened” during the past year, Dr. Richard Land, a commissioner with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom [USCIRF], said on Friday during a press conference announcing the release of that commission’s annual report.

“In Iran, government rhetoric and actions worsened conditions for nearly all non-Shi’a religious groups, most notably for the Baha’is, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community. The Commission has decided to designate Iran as a country of particular concern again because the situation has worsened,” said Land.

He added that the Iranian Parliament has been considering a law since September 2008, which includes a bill enshrining the death penalty for apostasy. “This proposed penal code should be rescinded,” said Land.

“The Commission urges the US government to call for the release of Muslim minorities and dissidents, including those Sufi Muslims in prison, as well as Ayatollah Boroujerdi, a senior Shi’a cleric who advocates the separation of religion and state,” he continued.

“The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based on primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused,” USCIRF’s 2009 report concluded.

The Commission recommended designating 13 nations on the list of “countries of particular concern” [CPC], including Iran, Burma, China, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Iran has been designated as a CPC by the US State Department since 1999.

USCIRF is a bipartisan federal commission, whose commissioners are appointed by the President of the United States and the US Congress.

The USCIRF provides recommendations to President Barack Obama’s administration, the US State Department, and members of Congress regarding ways in which US policy can promote human rights and religious freedom in nations the Commission identifies as the world’s most severe religious rights abusers.

The report recommends that the US government should “at the highest levels” speak out about the deteriorating conditions of religious freedom in Iran, as well as during discussions with representatives of the Iranian government.

After the conclusion of the press conference, Land told WashingtonTV that the issue of religious freedom in Iran “has to be on the table,” during any talks between the United States and Iran, in the same way that human rights was on the table in US negotiations with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“Secretary of State George Schultz always talked about human rights and the right of the [Soviet] refuseniks. And we’ve also made the same kind of stipulation with North Korea, that when it comes to talks with North Korea, that human rights and religious freedom, being one of those human rights, needs to be part of the total package. And that the United States of America and its government should not separate human rights discussions and religious freedom discussions from the other policy concerns,” Land said.

In Iran, ‘crackdown’ on Christians worsens

(CE) Two Christian women are being detained by Iranian security forces as “anti-government activists,” according to International Christian Concern, a human rights organization based in Washington. The imprisoned women reportedly are in ill health.

A Pentecostal church in Tehran has been ordered closed and three Iranian Christian men have been declared guilty of cooperating with “anti-government movements,” according to Compass Direct News of Santa Ana, Calif., which provides reports on Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith.

In an overview of persecution in Iran, International Christian Concern stated: “Iranian officials have dramatically increased their persecution of Christians following the conversion of a large number of Muslims to Christianity. Last year alone, 50 Christians were arrested for practicing their faith, some of whom were tortured. There have also been reports that Christians died due to the torture they were forced to endure.”

As phrased by Compass Direct News, there were “more than 50 documented arrests of Christians in 2008 alone.” Compass added that “the recent government crackdown includes Christian institutions that minister beyond Iran’s tiny indigenous Christian community.”

Compass also noted: “A new penal code under consideration by the Iranian Parliament includes a bill that would require the death penalty for apostasy.”

International Christian Concern, in its April 2 report on the two detained women, recounted:

“… [O]n March 5, 2009, Iranian security forces detained two Christian women for practicing Christianity. Iranian officials allege that Marzieh Amairizadeh Esmaeilabad and Maryam Rustampoor are ‘anti-government activists.’

“According to the Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN), Iranian security officials searched the apartment shared by the two women and confiscated their personal belongings before they handcuffed and took the Christians to Police and Security Station 137 in Gaysha, west of Tehran. After appearing before the Revolutionary Court on March 18, the women were sent to the notorious Evin prison. Iranian officials told the Christian women to post bail at a staggering amount of $400,000 in order to be released from the prison.

“Both women are allowed just a one minute telephone call every day to their immediate families. Both are unwell and in need of urgent medical attention. During their last call on March 28, Marzieh said that she was suffering from an infection and high fever. She said, ‘I am dying,’ reported FCNN.”

The Pentecostal church in Tehran was ordered closed because “it offered a Farsi-language service attended by converts from Islam,” Compass reported March 31, attributing the information to the Farsi Christian News Network.

The church, which consists of Assyrian believers, was ordered closed by the Islamic Revolutionary Court, which, as Compass described it, was established as part of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

An Assyrian member of Parliament, Yonathan Betkolia, announced the order on March 19.

Compass recounted that Betkolia last October had lauded freedoms extended to Iranian minority groups, but “he has publicly protested” the church allowing Farsi-language services for “non-Assyrians” (namely Muslims). An unnamed regional analyst said Betkolia waged the protest, as Compass put it, because “the increase in government pressure on the Christian community has put him in a difficult position.”

Compass quoted the analyst as saying, “As a representative of the Assyrian community, a priority for Betkolia is to ensure the preservation of the limited freedoms and relative peace his traditional Christian community enjoys. Disassociation from a church which has welcomed believers from a Muslim background should therefore be seen as a form of self-defense.”

Compass reported that the pastor of the church “has indicated that cancelling Farsi-language services may allow it to continue, though it was unclear at press time whether the congregation’s leadership was willing to make that compromise.”

Meanwhile, the three Iranian Christians declared guilty March 10 of cooperating with “anti-Christian movements” have received eight-month suspended prison sentences with a five-year probation. But, Compass reported, the Islamic Revolutional Court judge said he would enforce the sentences of Seyed Allaedin Hussein, Homayoon Shokouhi and Seyed Amir Hussein Bob-Annari – and try them as “apostates,” or those who abandon Islam – if they violate their probation – “including a ban on contacting one another,” Compass noted.

Compass reported: “The ‘anti-government movements’ referred to by the judge are satellite television stations Love Television and Salvation TV. Unlike the Internet, which is heavily censored in Iran, the two 24-hour satellite TV stations can bypass government information barriers.

“Sources said links between the accused and these organizations, however, remain tenuous,” Compass continued, quoting an unnamed source as saying, “The TV link came up almost six months after [the original arrests], so it is very new. We believe they just made it up, or it is something they want to make appear more important than is the reality.”

Compass further reported: “The three men were arrested by security forces on May 11, 2008, at the Shiraz airport while en route to a Christian marriage seminar in Dubai. According to a report by Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN), at that time the families of the three men avoided formal charges by agreeing to terms of release, including payment of a bond amount. Details of the terms were undisclosed.”

According to Compass, “The number of Assyrian Christians in the country is estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000, with estimates of Armenian Christians in Iran ranging from 110,000 to 300,000.”

[Source: http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Apr09/Art_Apr09_23.html]