In a statement, Baroness Catherine Ashton – High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission – expressed her “serious concern about the recent wave of arrests of Baha’i citizens, and the shutting down of an educational centre of the Baha’i community in Iran…The European Union calls on Iran to immediately release all individuals detained on religious grounds, to put an end to the ongoing persecution of the Baha’i community, including in the field of education, and to refrain from all forms of discrimination against religious minorities, so as to guarantee the full respect for freedom of religion or belief in Iran.”