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Bijan Masoumian

On Sunday, May 19th, 2017, Hassan Rouhani was re-elected to the position of President of Iran with 57% of the votes. One of Rouhani’s notable actions during his first four years as President was the drafting of the Charter of Citizens’ Rights on December 19th, 2016. (1) With his re-election and the majority support of the people, this charter has now become a codified law rather than just a written document. Among the intellectuals of Iran, there is no better example to test the effectiveness of this charter than the Baha’is. Evidence shows that, during the 38 years of the Islamic Republic, the Baha’i community has been systematically persecuted through calculated policies and actions.

Bahais in the Islamic Republic era.

The 38-year history of the Islamic Republic clearly shows that from the very beginning of its establishment, the authorities of the government, due to their deep-seated animosity towards the Shia clergy and the Baha’is, pursued and harassed the Baha’is. Initially, the leaders of the Baha’i community (members of the National Assembly and some local assemblies) were arrested, abducted, and disappeared, and many of them were secretly executed in order to instill a sense of loss of leadership and hopelessness in the Baha’i community throughout the country. Then the attack on the social life of the Baha’is began. First, holy Baha’i sites, including the historic House of the Bab in Shiraz, were destroyed, and others, such as the homes of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, and his father in Tehran, were confiscated. Then their collective buildings, including their cemeteries in Tehran, were seized*

This document states that, .“

The system’s treatment of the Bahai community should be such that their progress and development is hindered.“

And that is it.“

If they express a high price, they are not allowed to employ.“.

In other words, the explicit goal of this document and the official policy of the Islamic Republic government was to impoverish the Baha’i community culturally, educationally, and economically, so that in the long run, they would either be pushed to the absolute margins or completely destroyed as an independent faith. This document was discovered by Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the United Nations Special Representative for Human Rights in Iran, and was published in his 1993 report.

In addition to all the crimes committed by the government against the Baha’is and the countless restrictions imposed on their personal, economic, social, cultural, and educational lives, the administrative institutions (National and Local Assemblies) also declared this faith illegal in the early years of the revolution (1983) and ultimately did not allow the small group of “Friends of Iran” who were appointed by the government to address the basic needs of the Baha’i community in Iran, such as marriage, divorce, burial of followers, etc., with the consent and approval of the authorities.

”

“Friends of Iran.”“

And the subject of Mahvash Shahriari – teacher, administrator, poet, and Baha’i political prisoner.

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Mahvash Thabet Shahriari, one of the imprisoned Baha’i leaders in prison.

Mahvash Sabet Shahriari was one of the seven members of a group known as “Yaran Iran”. In December 2007, she traveled to Mashhad to attend the burial of a Baha’i in that city. However, on March 6, she was arrested by security forces in Mashhad and transferred to a solitary cell in Evin Prison’s Ward 209. About two months later, in May 2008, six other members of the “Yaran Iran” group were also arrested. Despite the temporary nature of these arrests, the accused were not informed of their charges for 20 months and were not allowed to contact a lawyer. Finally, on February 12, 2009, the Tehran Security Court issued a criminal indictment for all seven members of the “Yaran Iran” group and announced three different charges against them, as they were serving as leaders of the Baha’i community in Iran at the time. These three charges were “spying for

Mahvash Sabt Shahriari has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology. She started her professional career as a teacher and later was appointed as the manager of several schools. In line with her professional expertise, Mahvash also collaborated with the National Literacy Committee of Iran. However, after the Islamic Revolution, like thousands of other Baha’i educators, she was fired from her job and deprived of any government educational employment. Her activities, as a member of the Baha’i community in Iran, also included 15 years of managing a Baha’i Higher Education Institute (Free Scientific Institute). As the Islamic Republic government has denied Baha’i youth the right to higher education, this institute has provided an opportunity for Baha’i youth to pursue higher education.

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Nouid Khanjani, founder of the “Society for Combating Educational Discrimination”, along with some of its members.

The question here is why the Islamic Republic, despite being aware of the principle of “non-interference in politics” in the Baha’i Faith and 38 years of living peacefully alongside Baha’is, continues to pursue its hostile policies towards Baha’is and has even intensified some aspects of it in recent years. For example, many Baha’i cemeteries have been destroyed since the presidency of Ahmadinejad and it seems that even the dead of this faith will not be at peace from the oppression of the government. From the apparent evidence, it seems that officials of any group that may gain significant popularity among the people of Iran see it as a threat to their own stability and confront it. Perhaps this is why not only Baha’is, but also Christian converts, Sufis, Gonabadi Dervishes, and the group of mystics have been subjected to more hostility and harassment in recent years. In the case of Baha’is, officials see

End.

With the re-election of Hassan Rouhani as the president of the country, it seems that the time has come for him to, relying on the support of more than half of the voters, put the implementation of the Iranian citizens’ rights charter at the top of his agenda. The reality is that when it comes to the Baha’is and other minorities, the Islamic Republic has no other option. One is to draft a citizens’ rights charter that includes all Iranians, including the Baha’is, explicitly mentioning their name in this charter. Drafting and implementing this charter can help break down the thick walls of suspicion, doubt, and hesitation among Iranians, regardless of their religion, belief, and values, and pave the way for unity and solidarity among our compatriots. The other option is to continue with the suppression, suffocation, and outdated methods of the past, which will undoubtedly deepen the gap between the people and the government and discredit the Shiite clergy and traditional jurisprudence even

Sources.

1- The Citizen Rights Charter was published with the presence of the President + Full Text, Fars News Agency, December 20, 2016.

2- Wahman, Fereydoun, One Hundred and Sixty Years of Struggle against the Baha’i Faith, New Era Publications, 1388 (2009).

Economic Apartheid in Iran: A Comprehensive Letter from the Global Bahá’í Community Addressed to President Hassan Rouhani, September 2016, p. 10.

4- Navid Khanjani and a 12-year prison sentence in Rajai Shahr, Deutsche Welle, September 21, 2012.

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Note:

These actions, which had been targeting the Bahá’í community in Iran since the beginning of the revolution, were recognized in an official government document dated 6 Esfand 1369 (25 February 1991). This document was the result of a joint meeting attended by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the then President of Iran, and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, which was sent to the country’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He approved it with his seal and signature at the bottom of the document. This document not only justified the actions and behaviors of the Islamic Republic towards the Bahá’ís of Iran and shed light on its dimensions, but also laid the foundation for future anti-Bahá’í actions of the Islamic Republic.