Two UN experts on human rights today said recent statements by Iranian officials about the Baha'i Faith amounted to a “shocking and utterly unacceptable” round of incitement to hatred.

In a press release issued by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Ahmed Shaheed and Heiner Bielefeldt said attacks on Baha’is following a meeting between the daughter of a former president and a Baha'i prisoner on furlough “has exposed the Iranian authorities’ extreme intolerance for adherents of the religious minority group.”

The meeting, between Mrs. Faezeh Heshemi, the daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Heshemi Rafsanjani, and Fariba Kamalabadi, one of seven imprisoned Baha'i leaders, occurred on 13 May, when Mrs. Kamalabadi was on a five-day furlough.

Within days, Iranian officials and religious leaders vehemently denounced the meeting. A spokesman for the Judiciary called it a “very ugly and obscene act” and an Ayatollah described the Baha’is as “deviants” who must be “isolated.”

Dr. Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said statements by Iranian officials violate Iran’s obligation not to discriminate against its citizens.

“After years of blatant prejudice against the Baha’i community, the latest round of attacks and incitement to hatred is truly shocking and utterly unacceptable,” said Dr. Shaheed.

Dr. Bielefeldt, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, said the attacks threaten to further marginalize Iranian Baha’is.

“The increasingly hostile rhetoric against the Baha’i community goes beyond stripping its members of rights and treating them like second-class citizens,” Dr. Bielefeldt said. “It places the community before a very dangerous precipice where its very existence may be threatened.”

Since 1979, Baha’is have been systematically persecuted by the government in Iran. Currently, 72 Baha’is are imprisoned for their religious beliefs, and thousands more are blocked from employment or business, while young Baha’is in Iran are banned from higher education. Over the last several years, more than 8,000 items of anti-Baha'i propaganda have appeared in government controlled or sanctioned media, and numerous Baha'i cemeteries have been vandalized or desecrated.