I thank the Chairman for his kind welcome and introduction.
We are happy to have the opportunity to make this presentation to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, and very much appreciate the time given to us. We are particularly grateful for the interest of the committee and our parliamentarians in general in the plight of Iran's Baha'i community and acknowledge the long-standing support of successive Irish Governments for the Baha'is in Iran. This support has been expressed in commitments to the many resolutions, both at United Nations and European Parliament levels, that have been passed on the human rights situation in Iran which make specific mention of the Baha'i community.
The Irish Baha'i community is gravely concerned about the situation faced by our co-religionists in Iran and would like to make the following observations which we hope will be of interest and assistance to the committee's work and in light of its possible visit to Iran in the future.
The Baha'is have been persecuted throughout their history in Iran, but the persecution greatly increased after the Islamic revolution in 1979, as the Chairman has said. More than 200 Baha'is have been executed or killed since then, hundreds have been imprisoned and tens of thousands deprived of jobs, pensions, businesses and educational opportunities. The Government banned all Baha'i institutions, and the community's holy places, cemeteries and properties have been confiscated, vandalised or destroyed. The civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights of Iranian Baha'is are still being systematically violated today.
With some 300,000 members, the community is the largest religious minority in Iran, where Baha'is are oppressed solely on grounds of religious intolerance. According to the Iranian constitution, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are the only recognised religious minorities. The regime refers to the Baha'i faith as a heresy or a conspiracy and classifies its members as "unprotected infidels", who thus have no legal recourse. Some conservative Islamic leaders in Iran and elsewhere view the Baha'i faith as a threat to Islam and brand its followers heretics or apostates. The progressive stand of the faith on women's rights, education and independent investigation of truth are of grave concern to many Muslim clerics.
In localities throughout Iran, Baha'is are subjected to arbitrary arrest and short-term detention, harassment, intimidation and discrimination. Attempts to obtain redress are systematically denied as officials confiscate homes, deny rightfully earned pensions and inheritance, block access to employment in the public sector and impede the private business activities of Iranian citizens who are Baha'is. The authorities interfere with classes for Baha'i youth in private houses and persist in banning the sacred institutions that perform, in the Baha'i faith, important functions reserved to clergy in other religions.
Iranian officials have sought to force Baha'i students to identify themselves as Muslims as a prerequisite for entrance to university. Because Baha'is will not deny their faith, an entire generation has been denied access to higher education. For the first time in decades, Baha'i students were allowed to take the national university entrance exam in 2005. Some 800 did so, a great many passed with high scores, but none obtained admittance to university that year. They tried again in 2006. Only 178 were admitted and about 70 of these students have since been expelled, with the reason expressly given as their adherence to the Baha'i faith.
The planned and systematic nature of the persecution against this religious minority came to light in 1993 with the discovery and publication by the former UN special representative of a Government memorandum establishing a policy on "the Baha'i question". Drafted by the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and signed by the Supreme Leader, the document states unequivocally that the "progress and development" of the Baha'i community "shall be blocked".
In August 2006, Iran's Ministry of the Interior ordered provincial officials throughout the country to step up systematic surveillance of Iranian Baha'is. This was the latest in a series of documents revealing a national effort to identify and monitor members of the community and to collect information about them that, in most societies, would be considered private and sensitive. The United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ms Asma Jahanjir, had already expressed concern about a confidential letter sent in October 2005 by the Iranian military headquarters to various Government departments, including the Revolutionary Guard and police forces, instructing them to identify and monitor Baha'is throughout the country. Reports from various localities have since attested to the fact that the surveillance is being implemented and that acts of intimidation have followed.
We are alarmed at what could be implied by the combined effort of intelligence, military and police agencies in this context, particularly as it is concurrent with a campaign of propaganda against the Baha'i faith in the Government-controlled national media. Kayhan, the official Tehran newspaper, has published over three dozen calumnious articles since October last year. During the same period Iranian radio and television broadcasts have regularly condemned the Baha’is and their beliefs and we have received reports regarding an even greater number of anti-Baha’i websites. In the 1950s and 1980s, media campaigns of this nature led to acts of violence that included the murder of Baha’i men, women and children.
Iranian authorities have also continued to arrest and detain Baha'is throughout Iran in recent months, subjecting them to a revolving door sequence of imprisonment and release without setting trial dates. Bail demands have been very high in most cases and the assets being retained by authorities include considerable sums of money, deeds to property, business and work licences.
In addition to physical threats, the Baha'is in Iran continue to face ongoing obstacles to earning their livelihood. Managers of private companies have been pressured to dismiss Baha'is from their organisations; landlords have been asked to refuse lease renewals to their Baha'i tenant shopkeepers; trade organisations have taken action to prevent Baha'is in the service industry from working; and Baha'is who are directors or managers of companies have received death threats and-or threats that their family members would be kidnapped. Many of these Baha'i employers and factory owners set up businesses because they and other Baha'is could not obtain employment in Iran.
Many Baha'i homes have also been raided with personal property confiscated. Furthermore, a movement appears to be targeting Baha'i households, which have received notes, CDs and tracts, all aimed at refuting the tenets of their faith and, in some cases, they have been sent to all family members regardless of age. In recent months, the tone of these messages has become more blatantly threatening.
We consider that we are now witnessing the intensification of a co-ordinated strategy of intimidation against the Baha'i that includes physical threats, economic pressure and the incitement of public hostility through slanderous articles in the media. Our experience has been that once the spotlight of international attention is focused on these attempts to strangle the community culturally and economically and terrorise its members, this pressure is ameliorated or at least is not allowed to develop to a more catastrophic outcome.
The persecution to which Baha'is in Iran are subject is purely on religious grounds and if the authorities there have, on occasion, tried to dress up the pressure they are applying in the cloak of spurious charges and allegations, the fact is that Baha'is can invariably buy their freedom, enter university, rightfully inherit and acquire the job they desire simply by denying their faith and converting to Islam.
We seek no special treatment or recognition for our co-religionists in Iran but only that the Iranian Government honour its commitments under the various international covenants and standards to which it is a signatory and that this beleaguered community be finally emancipated.
It should be said that Iran's Baha'is love their country and have no other wish than to contribute to its progress and development. It is a peace-loving community drawn from all backgrounds of Iranian life whose members endeavour to live by the standards as set down by the founder of the Baha'i faith, Bahá'u'lláh, when he wrote: "Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship", and, "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens".
