Ten Baha’i women executed in Shiraz forty years ago commemorated at the European Parliament’s Iran delegation

Ten Baha’i women executed in Shiraz forty years ago commemorated at the European Parliament’s Iran delegation

The Chair, Cornelia Ernst, and the Vice-Chair, Bart Groothuis, of the delegation for relations with Iran at the session.
The Chair, Cornelia Ernst, and the Vice-Chair, Bart Groothuis, of the delegation for relations with Iran at the session.
STRASBOURG—13 July 2023—

A session of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Iran heard testimony on the legacy of 10 Baha’i women executed in Shiraz 40 years ago this year. 

Tahere Arjomandi, the niece of Tahereh Arjomandi Siyavashi, one of the women who was executed, shared her family’s history at the session, telling the delegation, “I was named after my aunt”, she said, “I have never met her personally, but I carry her name with me and I learned as a young child that she had to choose between her belief or her life. And like me, she was a Baha’i. She was 30 years old when she was hanged and her husband, her beloved husband, was executed two days earlier.”

Ms Arjomandi added that “They first arrested her husband, Jamshid, and then a month later, they arrested her. In prison she was again and again confronted with either having to deny her faith, convert to Islam, and then be released, or to be executed.”

“What all of these women had in common,” said Rachel Bayani, Representative of the Baha’i International Community, in her remarks to the delegation, “was that they were very normal women, none of them ever expected or wished to die, they had aspirations, and were looking forward to the rest of their lives.” Ms Bayani highlighted that “there are many powerful stories available about all of these women, about their courage, their resilience and how they remained truthful to themselves and what they believed in.”

The Chair of the delegation, Cornelia Ernst and the Vice-Chair, Bart Groothuis, both emphasized how touched they were by the story of the 10 women and how worried by the current situation of the Baha’is. 

After the meeting, the Vice-Chair reiterated the European Parliament’s commitment to the situation of the Baha’is and other minorities in Iran, saying that the treatment of minorities in Iran “will continuously face fierce opposition from the European Parliament.”


Other Members of the European Parliament who issued public statements in the context of the #OurStoryIsOne campaign marking the 40th anniversary of the executions include Frances Fitzgerald, Isabel Wiseler, Antoni Comin, Helmut Geuking, Rasa Juknevičienė, Hannah Neumann, Salima Yenbou and Sirpa Pietikäinen.