U.S. condemns jailing of six Baha’i leaders in Iran
Washington, May 15 (IranVNC)—The U.S. government and non-governmental organizations have denounced the recent arrest of six leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, and have called for the release of all Baha’is in detention.
By: IranVNC
Published: Friday, May 16, 2008
20:15GMT—4:15PM/EST
IRAN-BAHA’I-ARREST
Washington, May 16 (IranVNC)—The U.S. government and non-governmental organizations have denounced the recent arrest of six leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, and have called for the release of all Baha’is in detention.
“We strongly condemn the May 14 arrest of six leaders of the Iranian Baha’i community… by Iranian authorities and the continued imprisonment of a seventh leader, Mrs. Mahvash Sabet,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement released yesterday. The statement also called on Iranian authorities to release all Baha’is currently in detention.
The international Baha’i community hopes other governments will follow suit in condemning the arrests, which it says resemble arrests in the early 1980s that resulted in the execution or disappearance of 17 national Baha’i leaders.
“Baha’i communities around the world wish to speak out, to ask others to speak out,” said Kit Bigelow, Director of External Affairs for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States in an interview with IranVNC today. “We’ve approached our governments in the world to ask them to speak out and condemn what is happening,” she added.
“It's certainly our hope that the Islamic Republic would not carry out any executions,” Bigelow said.
London-based rights group Amnesty International has also expressed concern over the nature of the arrests.
"They may all be prisoners of conscience, detained solely because of their religious beliefs or their peaceful activities on behalf of the Baha’i community," the rights group said in a statement on Thursday.
Early in the morning of May 14, officers of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry entered the homes of six of the seven members of the Baha’i national coordinating committee in Tehran. The officers reportedly searched the homes for “several hours” before transporting them to Tehran’s Evin prison, where they remain in detention.
Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, the group’s seventh member, has been in custody in the northeastern city of Mashhad since March 5.
The group’s seven members are: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naimi, Mr. Said Rezai, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, Mr. Vahid Tizfahm and Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, and they are photographed standing together in a picture posted on the international Baha’i community’s website.
Iran’s official media outlets have not yet released any official comments on the arrests.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent panel that advises the president and Congress, has also condemned the arrests, likening them to the crackdowns on Baha’is immediately after the 1979 revolution in Iran.
“This development signals a return to the darkest days of repression in Iran in the 1980s when Baha’is were routinely arrested, imprisoned and executed,” USCIRF Chair Michael Cromartie said in a statement published yesterday.
Iran’s Baha’i community instituted the seven-member ad-hoc group that coordinates the community’s activities in 1983, when the post-revolution government banned the previous Baha’i governing system of nine-member Spiritual Assemblies.
In 1980, all nine members of the country’s National Spiritual Assembly were arrested and are presumed dead, having never been seen again. A second group was then elected, and eight of its nine members were executed, according to the U.S.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.
After a third group was elected, the government banned the Spiritual Assembly system. Seven members of the third group were subsequently executed.
Baha’is make up Iran’s largest religious minority with approximately 300,000 members.
Sources: IranVNC Washington Correspondent, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom website, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center website, Amnesty International website
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