Media Brief
September 2015
#askrouhani

 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to speak at the UN on Monday, 28 September, and hold a press conference on Tuesday the 29^th.

As he has in the past, President Rouhani can be expected to deliver a message of tolerance and moderation, now declaring also that Iran is open for business.

Any such message stands in sharp contrast to Iran’s human rights record, and journalists must not neglect to ask President Rouhani why his government continues to oppress its citizens.

Iran’s failure to meet international human rights obligations is perhaps made most starkly by its continuing persecution of Iranian Baha’is, who are non-violent, non-partisan and pose no threat to the government.

Despite President Rouhani’s promises to end religious discrimination,[1] the situation for Baha’is – Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority – has not improved and by some measures grown worse:

• The government’s program to vilify and defame Baha’is in the media has increased in intensity under President Rouhani. From January 2014 through May 2015 more than 6,300 articles, web pages, videos, leaflets or other items of anti-Baha’i propaganda have been disseminated.
   
• Currently, 74 Baha’is are in prison, including seven national-level leaders, serving 20 years terms, the longest of any prisoners of conscience.
   
• Since August 2013, at least 108 Baha’is have been arrested. Since 2005, more than 805 have been arrested.
   
• Despite government claims that young Baha’is are free to enter Iranian colleges and universities, it continues to block them from access to higher education. Since August 2013, at least 22 Baha’is have been expelled from Iranian colleges and universities.
   
• Baha’is face severe economic repression. They are banned from all forms of government employment, including education and medicine, and restricted from many occupations, such as the computer and food industries. Since President Rouhani’s inauguration, more than 200 Baha’i businesspeople have had their shops shuttered, been threatened with closure or otherwise been restricted or interfered with by the government.

Questions for President Rouhani include:

• Why does your government continue to deny that it persecutes Baha’is and other religious minorities in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
   
• When you came to the UN two years ago, your government made a token release of about a dozen prisoners of conscience. Why not follow through and release all prisoners of conscience now, such as the 74 Baha’is who are currently in prison, solely because of their religious belief?
   
• Your government is hoping to show international corporations that Iran is now a good place to do business. How can you hope to bring in outside companies, who must certainly be concerned about their public image, when your government makes it official policy to close down small Baha’i-run businesses, solely out of religious persecution?