A bleak future for Baha'is

Moojan Momen

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

Editor's note: Actor Rainn Wilson plays paper salesman Dwight Schrute in the television comedy "The Office."

Rainn Wilson says fellow members of his Baha'i faith are being persecuted in Iran.

(CNN) -- Why is Rainn Wilson, "Dwight" on "The Office," writing a news commentary for CNN? Good question.

It's a bit strange for me, to say the least; a comic character actor best known for playing weirdos with bad haircuts getting all serious to talk about the persecution of the fellow members of his religious faith.

Dear readers of CNN, I assure you that what I'm writing about is no joking matter or some hoax perpetrated by a paper-sellin', bear-fearin', Battlestar-Galactica obsessed beet farmer.

I am a member of the Baha'i faith. What is that, you ask? Well, long story short, it's an independent world religion that began in the mid-1800s in Iran. Baha'is believe that there is only one God and therefore only one religion.

All of the world's divine teachers (Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, Abraham, Krishna, etc.) bring essentially the same message -- one of unity, love and knowledge of God or the divine.

This constantly updated faith of God, Baha'is believe, has been refreshed for this day and age by our founder, Baha'u'llah. There. Nutshell version.

Now, as I mentioned, this all happened in Iran, and needless to say the Muslim authorities did not like the Baha'is very much, accusing them of heresy and apostasy. Tens of thousands were killed in the early years of the faith, and the persecutions have continued off and on for the past 150 years.

Why write about all this now? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see there's a 'trial' going on very soon for seven Baha'i national leaders in Iran.

They've been accused of all manner of things including being "spies for Israel," "insulting religious sanctities" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic."

They've been held for a year in Evin Prison in Tehran without any access to their lawyer (the Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi) and with zero evidence of any of these charges.

When a similar thing happened in 1980, the national leadership of the Iranian Baha'i community disappeared. And this was repeated again in 1981.

In fact, since 1979, more than 200 Baha'is have been killed, holy places and cemeteries desecrated, homes burned, civil rights taken away and secret lists compiled of Baha'is (and even Muslims who associate with them) by government agencies.

It's bad right now for all the peace-loving Baha'is in Iran who want only to practice their religion and follow their beliefs. It's especially bad for these seven. Here's a link to their bios. They're teachers, and engineers, and optometrists and social workers just like us.

This thought has become kind of a cliché', but we take our rights for granted here in America. Imagine if a group of people were rounded up and imprisoned and then disappeared not for anything they'd done, but because they wanted to worship differently than the majority.

There is a resolution on the situation of the Baha'is in Iran being sent to Congress. Please ask your representatives to support it. And ask them to speak out about this terrible situation.

Thanks for reading. Now back to bears, paper and beets!

Glad to see love is still at the top for Mindsay tags.

Do read http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4753976 article "Mysterious Connections that Link Us Together" by by Azar Nafisi, an elegant Iranian masterpiece of humanity.

Her article reminded me of the herioc Iranian woman I worked with when we taught at another university on the other side of the globe. While we traveled with a group of students to learn more about a topic of interest we were studying at the time, she sang us Iranian songs in a fabulously trained voice and told us of the challenges she and her family endured at the same time that Azar Nafisi may have been dealing with similar difficulties.

My friend also lost her employment at the University of Tehran when women were expelled. She is a lesson in goodness, displaying warmth and love for those of different cultures, even citing a time in Canada when she met with Iraq citizens (Iran and Iraq had heated disputes at that time, with some problems with peace between states). They were so happy to see another of similar interests, yet separated from their homeland region of the world. My friend awarded us all a degree in humanity that evening.

As Azar Nafisi quoted Huck Finn when he "imagines Jim ...as a human being and he decides that, 'alright, then, I'll go to hell.'" Certainly, the definition of Hell changed that day for Jim and for Huck.

It seems a lot like the story of the man who saw a vision of Hell, with people of all races, religions, political stripes and cultures sitting in a gloriously decorated banquet hall, in large circle about a table brimming with culinary delights, yet these people were starving! They were taunted constantly by the rich aroma of nourishment always ready for the taking, but could only look upon their feast as they were forced to use a spoon with a handle too long to reach their plate or their mouth.

The same man then saw Heaven, with a similar large banquet hall with people of all races, religions, political stripes and cultures sitting around a large circular table. Not surprisingly, they were all well fed and enjoying a fine meal even at that time. These people ate, laughed, and ate again as they enjoyed enlightening conversation. But upon closer observation, these people had the exact same spoon of those relegated to Hell. It was too long to reach their plate or their mouth, but these souls blessed their neighbor as they found it easy to feed the one sitting next to them.

I have seen the same vision of heaven by packing an extra sandwich for the lost one living on the street or taking a meal to a sick neighbor. I have noticed one woman quietly work for a decade to organize others, then prepare and deliver meals to a homeless shelter in our area. You can know heaven, too, simply by finding the long handled spoon that is within your reach. 

Thank you NPR and Azar Nafisi for reminding us that heaven is close. It is just a concept away.