"Increased concern for their fate.
We don't know where they are and their fundamental rights
to see family and counsel are being denied."
incommunicado; growing concern for their fate
27 May 2008
NEW YORK,
— Six Baha’i leaders who were arrested nearly two weeks ago are
being held incommunicado, without access to lawyers or
relatives, and the Baha’i International Community is
increasingly concerned about their fate.
“Although initial reports indicated they were taken to Evin
prison, in fact we don’t know where they are, and we are
extremely concerned,” said Bani Dugal, the principal
representative of the Baha’i International Community to the
United Nations.
“What is clear is that none of their fundamental rights are being
upheld. They have had no access to family members or counsel. We
don’t even know if they have been before a judge or whether they
have been formally charged.
“All we know is what a government spokesperson said last week,
which is that they were arrested for ‘security reasons,’ a
charge that is utterly baseless.
“We appeal to the international community, human rights groups,
and people of conscience, as well as the news media, to continue
their efforts to press the Iranian government so that the rights
of these people as detainees be upheld and that they be allowed
access to counsel and general communication with the outside --
as a minimum step,” said Ms. Dugal.
The six, all members of the national-level group that helped see
to the minimum needs of Baha’is in Iran, were arrested on 14 May
2008 in an early morning sweep that is ominously similar to
episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Baha’i leaders were
rounded up and killed.
A seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested
in early March in Mashhad after
being summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence office there.
The whereabouts of none of the seven are known, said Ms. Dugal.
“We understood that the six were taken to Evin prison -- the
seventh remaining in Mashhad --
principally because some of the government agents who arrested
the six on the 14th had documents indicating they would be taken
to that notorious place,” she said.
“However, in light of the fact that relatives have made repeated
attempts to learn more about the fate of the seven, and in all
cases have been met with evasion and conflicting stories from
government officials, we must now say that we don’t know where
they are -- and that our level of concern for their fate is at
the highest,” Ms. Dugal said.
Arrested on 14 May were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin
Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz
Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm. All live in
Tehran.
Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March
was Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, who also resides in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned to Mashhad by
the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she
was required to answer questions related to the burial of an
individual in the Baha’i cemetery in that city.
Last week, Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham gave
a press conference at which he acknowledged the arrest and
imprisonment of the six. News reports quoted Mr. Elham as saying
on 20 May that the six were arrested for “security issues” and
not because of their religious beliefs.
Those assertions -- the only public statement by the government
about the arrests -- were immediately rebutted by Ms. Dugal.
“The group of Baha’is arrested last week, like the thousands of
Baha’is who since 1979 have been killed, imprisoned, or
otherwise oppressed, are being persecuted solely because of
their religious beliefs,” Ms. Dugal said on 21 May.
All seven Bahá'ís who form a group that sees to the
needs of the Bahá'í community of Iran have been
arrested, six of them in early-morning raids on 14
May 2008 at their homes in Tehran. They are, seated
from left, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Saeid Rezaie, and,
standing, Fariba Kamalabadi, Vahid Tizfahm,
Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, and Mahvash Sabet.
Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran; pattern matches
deadly sweeps of early 1980s
15 May 2008
NEW YORK — Six Bahá’í
leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious
Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar
to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í
leaders were summarily rounded up and killed.
The six men and women, all members of the national-level
group that helped see to the minimum needs of Bahá’ís in
Iran, were in their homes Wednesday morning when government
intelligence agents entered and spent up to five hours
searching each home, before taking them away.
The seventh member of the national coordinating group was
arrested in early March in Mashhad after being summoned by
the Ministry of Intelligence office there on an ostensibly
trivial matter.
“We protest in the strongest terms the arrests of our
fellow Bahá'ís in Iran,” said Bani Dugal, the principal
representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the
United Nations. “Their only crime is their practice of the
Bahá’í Faith.”
“Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls
the wholesale arrest or abduction of the members of two
national Iranian Bahá’í governing councils in the early
1980s -- which led to the disappearance or execution of 17
individuals,” she said.“The early morning raids on the homes of these prominent
Bahá’ís were well coordinated, and it is clear they
represent a high-level effort to strike again at the Bahá’ís
and to intimidate the Iranian Bahá’í community at large,”
said Ms. Dugal.
Arrested yesterday were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr.
Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr.
Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm. All live in
Tehran. Mrs. Kamalabadi, Mr. Khanjani, and Mr. Tavakkoli
have been previously arrested and then released after
periods ranging from five days to four months.
Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008 was Mrs. Mahvash
Sabet, who also resides in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned
to Mashhad by the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on
the grounds that she was required to answer questions
related to the burial of an individual in the Bahá’í
cemetery in that city.
On 21 August 1980, all nine members of the National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran were abducted and
disappeared without a trace. It is certain that they were
killed.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran
was reconstituted soon after that but was again ravaged by
the execution of eight of its members on 27 December 1981.
A number of members of local Bahá’í governing councils,
known as local Spiritual Assemblies, were also arrested and
executed in the early 1980s, before an international outcry
forced the government to slow its execution of Bahá’ís.
Since 1979, more than 200 Bahá’ís have been killed or
executed in Iran, although none have been executed since
1998.
In 1983, the government outlawed all formal Bahá’í
administrative institutions and the Iranian Bahá’í community
responded by disbanding its National Spiritual Assembly,
which is an elected governing council, along with some 400
local level elected governing councils. Bahá'ís throughout
Iran also suspended nearly all of their regular
organizational activity.
The informal national-level coordinating group, known as
the Friends, was established with the knowledge of the
government to help cope with the diverse needs of Iran’s
300,000-member Baháí community, which is the country’s
largest religious minority.
Statement on Critical Situation of
the Baha’i Community in Iran
The week of May 12th has been one of great importance to the
international Baha’i Community. Friends from countries and
territories all over the world have been distressed by the
suffering of their human family in Myammar and China. The
tragedies there have compelled us all to lament the condition of
humanity, not just because of the havoc and human destruction
from nature, but mostly because of our frailties in not being
able to protect our fellow world citizens from the limitations
of ideologies and practices that prevent us from helping those
who are in the greatest need. This is the greatest tragedy, when
we want to help one another, and we’re not allowed.
This is also the case in Iran. Our community feels powerless to
help those who were arrested this past week with out just cause
or having committed any crime. These men and women join
thousands of Bahai’s in Iran who have been imprisoned, tortured
and executed over the course of the last century strictly
because of their beliefs. And what is their crime? They are
world citizens who have a sane loyalty to their country and the
desire to see their country thrive and prosper. They appreciate
the contributions to civilization that Persia and Persians have
made over the course of human history and are proud of their
culture and people.
Because of their faith, they don’t participate in party politics
and they hold steadfast to their convictions that all peoples
should have the right to their conscience. They believe that
ultimately the human race is one family, that we are guided and
protected by one God, the Founder of all the great religions of
humanity, who has taught all of us to respect one another, to
appreciate diversity of belief and to love one another.
To hear of more arrests this week was both discouraging and
profoundly sad. It reminded the Baha’i Community of the most
recent pogroms in Iran in the 1980’s where the IRI arrested
thousands, carried out a merciless campaign to execute the
leadership of the Baha’i Community in Iran (executing over 200
Baha’i’s) and threw Bahai’s out of their jobs, their schools,
defining them as non-citizens of the country they love. The
Islamic Republic also destroyed Holy Places and cemeteries as if
to obliterate every trace of the Baha’I Faith in the land of
It’s birth. It has been described by some in the international
community as cultural genocide but at it’s heart, it is a
campaign to eradicate this community which represents the
largest religious minority in Iran, numbering close to half a
million people.
The Freedom to Believe Foundation has been organized in North
America and many countries to come in order to combat this
fanaticism and try to encourage understanding of every human
being’s right to hold their own heartfelt convictions without
fear of intimidation. The first project of the Foundation is to
produce a feature length movie about ten women teenagers to
grandmothers, who were executed in Shiraz, Iran by the
government in 1983 for their beliefs. They were arrested,
imprisoned and tortured by the authorities for nine months and
finally hanged before dawn on June 18th, 1983. The youngest of
them was a 17 year old girl, Mona Mahmudnizhad, who refused to
recant her beliefs and the movie is based on her story and will
be called “Mona’s Dream”. Shohreh Agdashloo, Oscar-nominated
actress for “House of Sand and Fog” will play Mona’s mother in
the film and Mona’s role will be played by Keisha Castle-Hughes,
Oscar –nominated actress for “Whale Rider”.
The goal of the Foundation and the film will be to create
awareness of these injustices and help support people of all
faiths and no faith to be protected when their conscience is
violated. Please join us in helping to make these ideas become
successful on the world stage.
(CNN) --
Six Baha'i leaders in Iran were seized and imprisoned this week,
the religious group said. The act prompted condemnation and
concern from the movement and a top American religious freedom
panel.
A U.S. panel says attacks on Iran's Baha'is have increased since
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president.
Iranian intelligence agents searched the homes of the six on
Wednesday and then whisked them away, according to the Baha'i's
World News Service. The report said the six are in Evin prison
and that the arrests follow the detention in March of another
Baha'i leader.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry could not immediately be reached
for comment, and the incident has not been mentioned in Iran's
state-run media.
'Their only crime is their practice of the Baha'i faith,' said
Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha'i
international community to the United
Nations.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement Friday 'strongly'
condeming the arrests, which it said were 'a clear violation of
the Iranian regime's international commitments and obligations
to respect international religious freedom norms.
'We urge the authorities to release all Baha'is currently in
detention and cease their ongoing harassment of the Iranian
Baha'i community,' the U.S. statement said.
The group -- regarded as the largest non-Muslim religious
minority in Iran -- says the arrests are reminiscent of roundups
and killings of Baha'is that took place in Iran two decades ago.
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'Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls the
wholesale arrest or abduction of the members of two national
Iranian Baha'i governing councils in the early 1980s -- which
led to the disappearance or execution of 17 individuals,' Dugal
said.
'The early morning raids on the homes of these prominent Baha'is
were well-coordinated, and it is clear they represent a
high-level effort to strike again at the Baha'is and to
intimidate the Iranian Baha'i community at large,' she added.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
-- a government panel that advises the president and Congress --
condemned the Wednesday arrests, as well as another in March.
The commission chairman called the acts the 'latest sign of the
rapidly deteriorating status of religious freedom and other
human rights in Iran.'
The commission said the seven were members of an informal Baha'i
group that tended to the needs of the community after the
Iranian government banned all formal Baha'i activity in 1983.
The commission chairman, Michael Cromartie, echoed the fears
that the 'development signals a return to the darkest days of
repression in Iran in the 1980s when Baha'is were routinely
arrested, imprisoned, and executed.'
The Baha'is are regarded as 'apostates' in Iran and
have been persecuted there for years.
'Since 1979, Iranian authorities have killed more than 200
Baha'i leaders, thousands have been arrested and imprisoned, and
more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and
university jobs,' the commission said.
The commission said that since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
came to power a few years ago, Baha'is 'have been harassed,
physically attacked, arrested, and imprisoned.'
'During the past year, young Baha'i schoolchildren in primary
and secondary schools increasingly have been attacked, vilified,
pressured to convert to Islam, and in some cases, expelled on
account of their religion.'
The commission said other groups in the predominantly Shiite Muslim country
of Iran, such Sufis and Christians, are subject to intimidation
and harassment. Ahmadinejad's inflammatory statements about
Israel have 'created a climate of fear' among the country's
Jews.
The Baha'is say they have 5 million members across the globe,
and about 300,000 in Iran.
The Baha'is say their faith 'is the youngest of the world's
independent religions' and that its basic theme is that
'humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its
unification in one global society.'
They say their founder, Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), is regarded by
Baha'is as 'the most recent in the line of Messengers of God
that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes
Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Christ and
Muhammad.'