Asia

Tehran crackdown on other religions

This weekend numerous Baha’i worshipers were arrested for “ties” to a “center in Israel” and for “proselytizing” in schools and kindergartens. In the operation they raided 52 homes and commercial premises. Activists in other countries denounce a “climate of hate” fueled by the official media. Reports from a US-based NGO speak of a “disinformation campaign” to justify the repression.

Tehran () – Baha’is, Christian converts, Sunni Muslims and Sufis: Tehran’s repression against religious minorities – and civil society, a year after ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi became president – has intensified in recent times, culminating in in a wave of arrests against followers of Mīrzā Ḥusain ‛Ali Nūrī (better known as Bahá’u’lláh) for alleged “ties” to a “center in Israel” and for “proselytizing in schools and kindergartens”. The Iranian Intelligence Ministry confirmed the story as reported by news agencies and activist websites outside the country, without specifying the number of people charged or when the arrests were made.

The Baha’is have been the object of harassment and persecution since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and already in June and early July they had reported dozens of arrests among their faithful, as well as searches and raids on homes. However, the crackdown reached its peak on July 31, when authorities made numerous arrests after raiding and searching at least 52 homes and business premises across the country.

Diane Alai, a member of the Bahai International Community (BIC), told AFP that among those arrested are prominent personalities such as Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi and Afif Naemi, who had already been sentenced to a decade in prison for being part of the Yarán group. The activist herself speaks of an “outrageous measure” in a context of “escalation”, fueled by a “campaign of incitement to hatred” in the official media. James Samimi Farr, a spokesman for the Baha’i in the United States, adds that a “persecution” is being carried out against the community, and the authorities are “calculating how far they can go against us”. The ministry claims that those arrested were part of a group that spied for Israel and worked to illegally spread the religion, even infiltrating school environments at all levels.

The Iranian Constitution recognizes some confessions, including Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, but proscribes other cults such as the Baha’i, estimated at some 300,000 members throughout the country out of a total of some 84 million inhabitants. In June, in the southern city of Shiraz, a Revolution court sentenced 26 worshipers to between two and five years in prison for “conspiracy.”

On the other hand, a Iran Human Rights Documentation Center report (IHRDC), an NGO based in the United States, denounces a “disinformation campaign” to justify “baseless accusations” against members of minorities, among whom would be Christian converts from Islam. One of the accusations used by the authorities of the Islamic Republic, explains the document, is that of “ties with foreign countries” to foment “discord and divisions” within society. Jews, Sunnis, Sufis, Christian converts and the Baha’is themselves are targeted. “Propaganda against Christian converts is often disguised as anti-Zionism, and Christian converts are often branded as members of a ‘Zionist’ network,” the study says. In conclusion, the report states that “the Iranian government has systematically harassed and persecuted Christian converts and Baha’is for proselytizing”, when their only crime is to have promoted and practiced their religion.



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