Baha'is @ MindSay 
A bleak future for Baha'is
Published 13 May 2009
International pressure may have set Roxana Saberi free, but the plight of seven Iranian Baha'is, imprisoned in Tehran a year ago, has gone largely unnoticed.
Earlier this week, US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi was freed from prison in Iran after having her sentence for "spying" reduced. The charge, which she strongly denied, sparked international attention and calls for her release, which has now been widely welcomed.
But Ms Saberi leaves behind her many other inmates in Tehran's notorious Evin prison whose “crimes” against the Iranian state are also open to question.
Thursday (14 May) marks the first anniversary of the arrest and detention of seven prominent members of the Baha'i faith, Iran's largest non-Muslim religious minority.
The five men and two women made up an informal national committee, serving the needs of the country's 300,000 strong Baha'i community in the absence of formal Baha'i institutions, which are outlawed. Their committee – which had operated with the full knowledge of the authorities – along with all local ad hoc Baha'i administrations – was disbanded in March this year in a gesture of good will from the peaceful and law-abiding Baha'is to their government.
In the one year since their incarceration, the seven detainees have faced no charges nor have they been allowed access to their legal counsel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr Shirin Ebadi. They have faced spurious accusations of "espionage for Israel", and "insulting religious sanctities".
Iran’s prosecutor-general, Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, has asserted that there is evidence that the seven have been involved in "intelligence-gathering" and "infiltration", thus more or less declaring their guilt before any trial date has been announced. The evidence he refers to has yet to be disclosed to the public or produced in a court of law.
In recent days, however, a report from the Baha'i's UN office indicates that another charge is being levelled against the seven prisoners; that of “spreading corruption on earth.”
To the Western reader, such an accusation may seem to be a confusing or even nebulous basis for criminal charges. But in theocratic Iran it has a basis in the penal code and leaves the accused in an extremely vulnerable position.
The term, found in the Koran, has increasingly been used within Islamic legal practice to brand any undesirable "offender": Muslims considered to be too lax in their practices; those who are considered socially evil, such as drug-traffickers and prostitutes; or those with whom the authorities have a fundamental theological disagreement, such as the Baha’is.
Vague as these charges may be, they still have the potential to lead the accused to the executioner.
The allegations against the Baha'is are as nonsensical as they are unjust. The accusations play to the fears of certain areas of the Iranian population about enemies - internal and external - conspiring to undermine the country.
Iran remains a state with a great sense of its own historic legacy and with a clear goal of attaining a mantle of regional leadership - of both moral, as well as political, dimensions.
For the seven Baha'is being held in the grim confines of their Evin cells, their best hope for release might lie in a public protest as widespread as the one that led to the freeing of Roxana Saberi.
Such an outcry may help Iran’s leaders to reflect that imprisoning and persecuting the innocent is not in their national interest.
Moojan Momen is an Iranian author and academic, and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society
SOURCE: http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/05/roxana-saberi-baha-iran-tehran
Six Baha'is arrested in Iran; one worked for Shirin Ebadi's rights organizations
15 January 2009GENEVA — At least six Baha'is were arrested in Iran yesterday, including a woman who worked at human rights organizations connected with Nobel prize winner Shirin Ebadi.
According to reports received from Iran, the six were arrested after government security agents raided the homes of at least 11 Baha'is. During the raids, they also confiscated Baha'i books and other items, such as computers and photographs.
Among those arrested was Jinous Sobhani, who worked as an assistant for the Organization for Defending Mine Victims and also for the Defenders of Human Rights Center. Both were founded by Mrs. Ebadi.
In an interview with CNN, Mrs. Ebadi said today that Ms. Sobhani had been laid off from both organizations after government agents raided Mrs. Ebadi's offices and shut them down in December.
While some reports indicate that more than six Baha'is were arrested yesterday in Tehran, those confirmed so far include Ms. Sobhani, Mr. Shahrokh Taefi, Mr. Didar Raoufi, Mr. Payam Aghsani and Mr. Aziz Samandari. Mr. Golshan Sobhani was also arrested but was released a few hours later. It is unclear whether he is related to Ms. Sobhani.
"The arrest of these individuals reflects not only the grave situation facing Baha'is in Iran but also the overall human rights situation there," said Diane Ala'i, a representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations in Geneva.
"As far as we know, all of these people were arrested primarily because they are Baha'is," said Ms. Ala'i.
But she confirmed the fact that Ms. Sobhani worked for the two organizations founded by Mrs. Ebadi.
"The connection of Ms. Sobhani to the work of Mrs. Ebadi's organizations points to the gravity of the situation in Iran, where the government seems intent on stifling any expression of the importance of human rights or religious freedom," said Ms. Ala'i.
In December, the Baha'i International Community condemned the closing of Mrs. Ebadi's Defenders of Human Rights Center in Tehran and called for its reopening.SOURCE: http://news.bahai.org/story/688
Baha’is call for reopening of human rights center in Iran
23 December 2008GENEVA — The Baha'i International Community today expressed grave concern over the closing by the Iranian government of Shirin Ebadi’s Defenders of Human Rights Center in Tehran and called for its reopening.
“The closing of Mrs. Ebadi’s office is a blow to human rights for the whole of Iran,” said Diane Ala’i, a representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations in Geneva.
“The spokesperson of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has indicated that the reason behind the closure was that the Center has no license. But it would be a simple matter to give them one. Otherwise, the fact that the Iranian government would shut down the office of its most famous human rights defender, who is Iran’s only winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the first Muslim woman so recognized, can only be perceived by the world at large as further evidence that the government has no regard for rights and freedoms.
“Mrs. Ebadi and her colleagues are engaged in defending numerous individuals and groups in Iran, and the closure of the Center will certainly interfere with their efforts and impede the adequate legal representation that they are committed to providing,” she said.
Among those being defended by Mrs. Ebadi and her organization are the seven Baha'i leaders who are currently being held without charge in Evin prison in Tehran. The seven were arrested in March and May in an ominous sweep that was reminiscent of when Baha'i leaders in the 1980s were rounded up and executed.
”Regardless of the attempts against human rights defenders in Iran, Mrs. Ebadi and her colleagues are courageously pursuing their work. For the good of the country, we call upon the Iranian authorities to resolve the administrative issue, and to allow the Center to reopen immediately,” said Ms. Ala’i.
Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran; pattern matches deadly sweeps of early 1980s
15 May 2008NEW YORK — Six Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed.
The six men and women, all members of the national-level group that helped see to the minimum needs of Bahá’ís in Iran, were in their homes Wednesday morning when government intelligence agents entered and spent up to five hours searching each home, before taking them away.
The seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in early March in Mashhad after being summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence office there on an ostensibly trivial matter.
“We protest in the strongest terms the arrests of our fellow Bahá'ís in Iran,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations. “Their only crime is their practice of the Bahá’í Faith.”
“Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls the wholesale arrest or abduction of the members of two national Iranian Bahá’í governing councils in the early 1980s -- which led to the disappearance or execution of 17 individuals,” she said.
“The early morning raids on the homes of these prominent Bahá’ís were well coordinated, and it is clear they represent a high-level effort to strike again at the Bahá’ís and to intimidate the Iranian Bahá’í community at large,” said Ms. Dugal.
Arrested yesterday were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm. All live in Tehran. Mrs. Kamalabadi, Mr. Khanjani, and Mr. Tavakkoli have been previously arrested and then released after periods ranging from five days to four months.
Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008 was Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, who also resides in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer questions related to the burial of an individual in the Bahá’í cemetery in that city.
On 21 August 1980, all nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran were abducted and disappeared without a trace. It is certain that they were killed.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran was reconstituted soon after that but was again ravaged by the execution of eight of its members on 27 December 1981.
A number of members of local Bahá’í governing councils, known as local Spiritual Assemblies, were also arrested and executed in the early 1980s, before an international outcry forced the government to slow its execution of Bahá’ís. Since 1979, more than 200 Bahá’ís have been killed or executed in Iran, although none have been executed since 1998.
In 1983, the government outlawed all formal Bahá’í administrative institutions and the Iranian Bahá’í community responded by disbanding its National Spiritual Assembly, which is an elected governing council, along with some 400 local level elected governing councils. Bahá'ís throughout Iran also suspended nearly all of their regular organizational activity.
The informal national-level coordinating group, known as the Friends, was established with the knowledge of the government to help cope with the diverse needs of Iran’s 300,000-member Baháí community, which is the country’s largest religious minority.
Article Source: http://news.bahai.org/story/632
