The Baha’i International Community is profoundly concerned by a change in tactics in the Iranian government’s persecution of the Baha’i community—the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. Baha’is have been persecuted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when more than 200 Baha’is were executed, and today are suppressed in all areas of life. But the changes in the Iranian government’s treatment of the Baha’is represents an escalation and intensification of its policy of systematic persecution against the community.
The following statement details a range of new and ever harsher methods the authorities are using to persecute the Baha’is. The methods include home raids and searches, arrests, trials, prison terms, land and property confiscations, hate speech, the denial of education, and the denial of burial rights and of basic citizenship rights.
The principal goal of these new tactics, the Baha’i International Community believes, is to sow fear and confusion, to disenfranchise and further impoverish Baha’is, to prolong the harassment of individuals, and to instill feelings of uncertainty and thus rob all Baha'is of peace and security in their daily lives.
Violent home raids, searches, and arrests
The past few months have witnessed several increasingly disturbing trends in the incidents of persecution of the Baha’is in Iran. A systematic program of home invasions and arrests has been unfolding in cities across the country, starting successively with Shiraz, then Yazd, Isfahan, and most recently in Hamedan, Karaj and Shirvan. Since the beginning of October, 40 Baha’is have been arrested and the homes of close to 100 families have been invaded and searched.
One of the most disturbing trends has been the violent and abusive treatment of the Baha’is by members of the security agencies undertaking searches and arrests, as well as the verbal and physical abuse being suffered by individuals under interrogation in detention centers.
In one city, for instance, when security agents invaded the home of a family, the young son objected to the disruptive search by the agents and their activities. The agents then severely beat the boy in front of his parents and his grandmother, who were powerless to intervene, leaving him handcuffed with bruising plastic ties and in pain. In another case, a mother of a young family arrived home after taking her child to school and noticed four men waiting in the alley. When the woman opened the door of her home, she was forcefully thrown inside by the four men, who followed without presenting a search warrant and proceeded to conduct a search of her home. And in a third instance, during a home raid, the father of the household suffered a heart attack as his daughter was taken to prison.
And in the most recent home invasions in Hamedan, armed and masked agents forcibly broke into the homes of 33 families, several of which housed elderly and infirm women in their 80s, including one suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and under the constant care of a nurse. When the nurse at first refused to open the door to the security agents, they retaliated by breaking windows and breaking down the door to enter. Agents abused and intimidated these elderly women and their families, searched and ransacked their homes, and in at least three cases this treatment resulted in hospitalization of the elderly as a result of trauma and stress. One of these women suffered a heart attack during the raid and required resuscitation. Armed agents also intimidated and threatened other homeowners at gunpoint.
The home invasions and searches have become extremely intrusive, resulting in the complete ransacking of homes; in some cases, agents have removed ceramic floor tiles, torn open furniture and have even destroyed musical instruments. In other cases, homes have been subjected to intrusive surveillance through the installation of surveillance cameras trained on the doors of the homes of Baha’i families, to monitor their activities and visitors.
Several of the households that experienced raids were then pressured by the Iranian authorities—which threatened them with serious additional repercussions should they disclose details of their experience to outside parties. Agents have also deleted smartphone videos, CCTV videos, and other records, in an effort to eliminate any evidence of their actions against the Baha’i community.
Throughout this recent upsurge in attacks on the Baha’is, more than two-thirds of those arrested and detained have been women, many of whom are in their twenties and thirties, and who have been forcibly separated from their young children. Many of the raids on families with young children occurred when the children were present—intensifying fear and panic within the families.
In one recent case, a young woman was arrested and jailed for five years merely for making enquiries with authorities about the burial of her grandmother—separating her for the next five years from her five-year old daughter. Another woman with two children was recently imprisoned for 10 years after spending a year in detention without trial.
Many of the arrested individuals have been detained without trial for extended periods, some in local prisons and others at specialized Ministry of Intelligence detention facilities. Several current cases have been in detention for periods of several months, and one for more than 247 days, each without trial and while being denied release on bail. The detainees are awaiting trials for “crimes” that the rest of the world would consider as providing community service.
False charges and severe prison terms
Long and unjust prison terms are being handed down by the courts for Baha’i individuals on trumped-up charges such as “membership of the deviant Baha’i sect” or the ridiculous charge of “social activities with the intention of propagating the heretical Baha'i sect.” Several Baha’is have been sentenced to long prison terms for their humanitarian assistance such as teaching homeless and underprivileged Iranian or Afghan children and for providing relief to earthquake victims. The Iranian authorities are criminalizing the generous and selfless services offered by members of the Baha’i community in support of others in need.
There are currently at least 70 individuals either in detention or serving prison sentences, the largest number in the past six years, reflecting the recent upsurge in the level of persecution of the Baha’i community. And about 1,200 others are either involved in ongoing court proceedings relating to incidents of persecution or have been sentenced and are awaiting the summons to serve their prison terms. Sentencing by the courts has also become increasingly harsh, with tens of Baha’is sentenced to a combined total of hundreds of years in prison in recent weeks.
Detained Baha’is are routinely interrogated and, at the beginning of recent interrogations, several prisoners experienced threats and psychological pressure and abuse. In some cases, the threats did lead to physical harm being inflicted on some of the prisoners, including women.
The unjust treatment of those in detention has recently extended to the denial of leave for prisoners to visit dying loved ones.
Baha’is that have been released on bail are required to post exorbitant amounts either in cash or by posting their property deeds as collateral. Bails for Baha’is are now typically on the order of 20 to 80 times the annual salary of an individual employed in government service in Iran, placing a heavy financial burden on these Baha’is and their extended families. A recent example was of a young woman from Shiraz, in her early twenties, being required to post bail of an amount close to US $200,000, a vast sum for any ordinary Iranian citizen.
State-sponsored theft, denial of education, and hate speech
Another disturbing trend has been the nature of items being confiscated from Baha’i homes. Whereas previous confiscations usually focused on Baha’i sacred books, photographs, and mobile electronic devices and computer equipment, recent searches and confiscations have included any available cash and bank cards, personal jewelry and other valuable items, property deeds, vehicle deeds, identity documents and passports, as well as home-based tools and equipment used for generating livelihoods for Baha’is who have previously faced the forced closure of businesses and shops.
The confiscated items of value, often equivalent to hundreds or even thousands of US dollars, and often comprising all of their life’s savings, are rarely returned to the owners. This amounts to state-sponsored theft. Confiscating work-related tools and property deeds is clearly aimed at further impoverishing and demoralizing the Baha’i community within what is already a dire economic situation for most citizens across the country.
The last 18 months have also seen a recurrence of rural land confiscations and property destruction by the Iranian government, with irrigated and valuable farmlands confiscated, homes demolished, and families displaced.
University-age Baha’is have long been denied entry into universities or institutes of higher learning. But a disturbing new feature emerged in the current academic year: students were asked to sign declarations denying the authority of their religious institutions in order to be granted entry into university. The government’s declaration form is worded in such a way as to be a recantation of faith through denial of one of the basic tenets of Baha’i belief.
A conspicuous increase in hate speech against Baha’is has also been recently observed in Iran. The key players in this propaganda are state news agencies, especially those directly linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Supreme Leader, and their propagandists, on social media platforms such as X and Telegram, from Friday prayer Imams, by an Iranian conspiracy theory group, and from other individuals backed by government organizations. Hateful material against Baha’is accuse them of being behind the recent protests, of promoting permissiveness, of being against Islam and Shiism, being spies for Israel and the West, and being part of a political movement that seeks to undermine the state.
Denial of burial rights and citizenship rights
Another trend is the progressive erosion of Baha’i burial rights and actions by the Iranian government attempting to seize control of Baha’i cemeteries in a number of locations across the country. The Baha’i cemetery in the city of Arak, which had been in use for 120 years, was recently placed up for auction without the permission of the Baha’is and even as Baha’is themselves were prevented from re-purchasing it from the authority that confiscated it in the first place. The Baha’i cemetery in Karaj was fenced off by the authorities and a process is underway for the authorities to take control of its management. And the management of the Baha’i cemetery in Tehran has been forcibly taken over by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, in coordination with the authority for Muslim cemeteries, or Behesht-e-Zahra. Baha’is formerly involved in its supervision have been detained and jailed. The new management has subsequently carried out several forced burials of deceased Baha’is in the absence of family members and without observing Baha’i burial rights—and has frequently denied Baha’is entry to the cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones. The agents have, meanwhile, buried deceased Baha’is in the area known as the Khavaran mass grave, the site of the burial of between 5,000 to 8,000 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience executed by the Islamic Republic during the 1980s. Burying Baha’is in this site appears to be an attempt by the government to progressively eliminate the memory of the mass grave by replacing it with a Baha’i cemetery. The move is against the expressed wishes of the Baha’i community out of respect for the families of those buried in the mass grave.
The final trend observed by the Baha’i International Community is the progressive erosion of Baha’i civil rights under the law—particularly with respect to the registration and recognition of Baha’i marriages. Previously, Baha’i marriages were registered in a physical registry by notaries and a marriage certificate was then issued. But more recently, the Iranian government has introduced an online digital registry system which does not provide an option for registrants to select “Baha’i” or “other” as their religion in the religious affiliation data entry field. Any application that does not include information in this field is invalid. This has serious implications for the registration of a marriage itself, rendering it impossible, with the couple thereafter legally considered as being in an unrecognized de facto relationship. And this, in turn, has serious implications for any subsequent registrations of births and other social rights.
Our Story Is One
But the Iranian government’s anti-Baha’i narrative finds less and less acceptance in Iranian society. The Baha’i International Community has been heartened to see public opinion shift over the past several years in Iran; today, many of their fellow citizens see the Baha’is in Iran as an integral and positive part of Iran’s diverse family. Meanwhile, the persecution they have suffered for 44 years is coming to be understood as the same oppressive treatment that is now being inflicted on Iranians of all backgrounds. Iran’s government is failing in its efforts to drive a wedge between Baha’is and their compatriots—making it all the more desperate and brutal in its efforts to stigmatize and suppress the Baha’i community.
A recent case in Isfahan—following the arrest of 10 innocent Baha’i women—saw intelligence agents go from house to house to harass and pressure neighbors and associates of these Baha’is to lodge formal complaints against them. A few individuals did so, with great reluctance and under duress; yet later, some of them apologized to the Baha’is for accusations they were forced to take by the security services. The Iranian government is trying to fabricate evidence in their campaign against the Baha’is merely for public consumption—given that their legal system does not appear to require any evidence, even fabricated evidence, to convict Baha’i defendants.
The groundswell of support for Iran’s Baha’i community—from Iranians of all backgrounds inside and outside the country—is reflected in the thousands of contributions pouring in to the ongoing #OurStoryIsOne campaign. The Baha’i International Community launched this campaign in June 2023 to commemorate 40 years since the execution of 10 Baha’i women in Shiraz, and to signal its support for equality and justice for all. Countless Iranians and others have responded. Our story is theirs; their story is ours.
