This is an Op-Ed I wrote in April/May 2018 regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal and the flagrant, but shrouded, Persecution of Baha’is in Iran.
A Silent Genocide
On the same day Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told the American Council on Foreign Relations, that “Being Baha’i is not a crime”, Baha’i Mitra Badrnejad was charged for “membership to the Baha’i religious organization”. Mitra had been held captive in Ahvaz, the capital in southwestern province of Khuzestan, for close to 60 days after being randomly investigated. Weeks before five Baha’i citizens were sentenced to one year in jail on account of their religion.
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights maintains that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”. However, Iran has found a loophole, namely to define religion on their own terms, and then deny this liberty to believers of any religion not formally recognised. As a result Baha’is are entirely excluded from constitutional protection.
In his interview Zarif spoke about the freedoms afforded to Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews in Iran. He boasted their seat in the parliament, and their exemption from Islamic jurisprudence. “If you want to afford such exceptional treatment to religious minorities”, he says, “you cannot provide it to anyone who claims they are a religion”. Around 300,000 Baha’is live in Iran, making the Baha’is Faith the country's largest minority religion, yet Zarif adamantly claims that “We do not recognise somebody as a Baha’i as a religion”.
As an Iranian Baha’i raised abroad, as well as a second generation refugee, the heart-tugging narratives of my family’s flee from their motherland following the revolution are ever on my mind. With Iran’s eagerness to re enter global markets, I cannot help but think about the thousands suffering a silent genocide behind closed doors.
Originating in Iran in the mid-nineteenth century, the Baha’i Faith has spread to all corners of the world, with over 5 million followers, representing over 2100 different ethnic and tribal groups in over 200 countries. It is an independent religion, recognizing the divine origin of all the world’s great religions. The Baha’i Faith’s central tenet is the unity of mankind, advocating for the uniting of all people into a peaceful and integrated society founded on principles such as the full equality between the sexes and the recognition of the essential oneness of the world’s great religions.
Although Baha’i persecution dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 the persecution has been aggravated. In the 10 years following the revolution, over 200 Baha’is were executed, hundreds more were tortured and imprisoned, and many of their cemeteries have been desecrated, their religious holy places destroyed. Baha’is are not allowed to attend universities nor hold jobs in the public sector. When it comes to Shiite minorities in other countries there is a hard stance on their religious freedom, and rightly so, but what havoc would ensew if each country recognised whichever religions they pleased, and then persecuted the other groups?
Although there been increasing pressure and condemnation from the international community to mitigate national embarrassment, the government has taken measures to evade being charged; these measures include enrolling few Baha’i students in universities only to expel them later. Furthermore, due to the surge of state-sponsored news media systematically disseminating propaganda against the Baha’is, Baha’is are frequently harassed in public settings. These messages include scapegoating the community for the economic and political plight of iran, with hellish imagery portraying the Baha’i community. In 2010 and 2011, approximately 22 of these anti-Baha’i pieces were detected in the state-sponsored media. This number rose to 1500 monthly in 2016.
To further conceal the humanitarian crisis, when arresting Baha’is Iran invokes articles 499 and 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, aimed at criminals who threaten “national security” or engage in “any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic” to justify their heinous acts. As the Baha’i faith eschews partisan political involvement and violence of any sort, believers pose no threat to the government, and . What’s more, despite confronting severe persecution, Baha’is are actively working for the betterment of Iran. These efforts include tutoring impoverished youth and providing humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of earthquakes.
Nevertheless, the Baha’i international community has documented almost 100 physical assaults on Baha’is since 2005. In February 2007, for example, an 85-year-old woman in was found dead in her home in Abbas Abad with her hands and feet bound and her mouth gagged. More recently, On 26 September 2016, in the city of Yazd, Mr. Farhang Amiri, was stabbed to death in front of his home, where he and his family had resided for many years. Last year the two murderers were released on bail for having confessed to killing him because of his faith. “We wanted to kill a Baha’i” one of the brothers says, “we had heard that shedding of their blood is a meritorious deed”.
To this, Diane Ala’i, the representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations in Geneva, reported “How could a fair justice system possibly allow two murderers who have admitted to killing an innocent individual because of his beliefs and expressed a willingness to do it again be released and allowed to live freely in society?”.
Meanwhile, at international meetings, Iranian officials continue to claim that Baha’is have “all citizenship rights”. This could not be further from the truth and there is an obvious multi-leveled dissonance at play. Thus, along with the abhorrent persecution of Baha’is in Iran, a new problem is swiftly rising to the fore: how this flagrant breach of Humanitarian Law is being represented in the West. Iran is finally being let in from the cold after years of embargos, but is economic allegiance all that matters?
In May 2016 five prominent Iranian religious scholars published a statement saying that “followers of the Baha’i religion have been oppressed because of their religion and beliefs for decades.” In the past several years, a new campaign called Education Is Not A Crime has spread the world with its eye catching murals, one of which is in Harlem. Others are sprinkled in global metropoles such as Delhi, London, Johannesburg and Sydney. They draw parallels between the human rights crisis in Iran and the longstanding injustices in the respective nations. The campaign proclaims the interconnectedness of community struggle globally, and that addressing the humanitarian crises in Iran is in tandem with addressing discrimination all around the world.
Following the creation of the universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council in 2005, supposedly standardising human rights practises worldwide, Iran had consistently ignored the questions and comments on the treatment of Baha’is. In 2010, at least 21 nations demanded an improvement. Iran promised to comply. An analysis undertaken by the Baha'i international Community revealed no adherence whatsoever.
Yet while thousands of Baha'is are suffering in their homeland, the public support for Iran Deal has increased without demanding Iranian government and its religious leaders to stop their horrendous explicit persecution of the Baha'is. While international community has been more vocal in support of status of women and political opposition in Iran, the persecution of Baha’is has been widely shrugged off in the international press.
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A government will, in the name of diplomacy, deny any breaches of humanitarian law accused of them. Denial does not mean truth, nor does it mean that the case is closed. The problem is that these facts are distorted, and as a result, foreign relations will continue to be misinformed. The first step to establishing justice is knowing the facts and rectifying the dissonance. If the world is going to open its doors to Iran, let it be with a clear conscience.
The second step would be to pressure Iran to adhere to their consented obligations. As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran has a manifest obligation under international law to protect its citizens from discrimination and prejudice. Under this covenant there are clearly defined obligations, such as the protection from incitement to discrimination, as well as the protection for religious minorities. Even if the Baha’i Faith was denied a religious status, Iran has obligations to “respect and ensure all individuals in its territory”.
Condemning and having international pressure are band aid solutions; we need to directly address the authorities in Iran who believe it is within their prerogative to trample on humanitarian laws at will. We need to make it impossible for the Iranian regime to conceal such flagrant breaches of human rights. In the past trade relations between the EU and countries like Saudi Arabia have been threatened due to subjugation of humanitarian law, and this should be no different. The surreptitious mistreatment of Baha’is should serve as a litmus test to Iran’s humanitarian posture.
Tears of longing for Iran, as well tears of solidarity for all those who face persecution in their own countries have cultivated gratitude for the education I am receiving, the freedom I am exercising and the resulting power I have to raise awareness and fight for justice. I attend an institution staunch on activism, in a country keen on transparency and so I ask myself “Why can’t the two be reconciled?”. Now hyper aware of the dissonance between semblance of freedom and reality of oppression, I invite the USA to think twice before conceding.
//Yasmine Ayman