Chapter I

Introduction

y all accounts, the house of Mirza Abbas Nuri was a masterpiece of Islamic architecture. Mirza Abbas Nuri was a renowned 18th century Iranian calligrapher, and his home in Tehran — marked by a verdant veranda, flowered courtyard, and tasteful tile-work — was considered among the most beautiful houses of that period.

In the summer of 2004, however, Iranian authorities demolished the house. The reason was all too clear: the home was considered by Iran’s Bahá’ís as a sacred and historic site, inasmuch as Mirza Abbas Nuri was the father of Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith.

The demolition in June 2004 of the house of Mirza Abbas Nuri, a renowned 18th century Iranian calligrapher, reflects the Iranian government’s willingness to destroy its own cultural heritage to eradicate the Bahá’í Faith from Iran. High Resolution Image >

That the Iranian government would destroy part of its country’s own heritage tells much about the current state of Iran’s 25-year-campaign to eradicate the 300,000-member Iranian Bahá’í community. Since coming to power in 1979, Iran’s cleric-led Islamic government has systematically persecuted Bahá’ís in Iran, using execution, imprisonment, torture, and a wide range of measures designed to impoverish and drive out the country’s largest religious minority.

Between 1978 and 1998, more than 200 Bahá’ís were executed by the Iranian government. Hundreds more Bahá’ís were imprisoned and tortured, and tens of thousands were deprived of jobs, pensions, businesses, and educational opportunities.

In the face of intense international pressure, most significantly through a series of United Nations human rights resolutions, the Iranian government has essentially halted the executions and greatly reduced the number of Bahá’ís held in prison.

Yet while the government has seemingly halted the most egregious forms of direct violence against individual members of the Bahá’í community, the government has nevertheless continued its campaign of persecution, albeit in a manner that clearly seeks to avoid the scrutiny of international human rights monitors.

Bahá’ís in every part of Iran continue to face the threat of short-term detention and harassment. In the spring of 2005, for example, more than 35 Bahá’ís in various areas were imprisoned without charge. While most were held less than a week, others were jailed for up to three months in a kind of “revolving door” detention apparently aimed principally at creating terror and repression. Some of the prisoners, for example, were held incommunicado, in unknown locations, while their families desperately searched for them. In addition, government agents conducted prolonged searches of many of their homes, confiscating documents, books, computers, copiers and other belongings.

Farhang Mavaddat was executed in June 1981, and his wife Mehri Mavaddat was imprisoned in 1980. High Resolution Image >

Moreover, the government has sought overall to suffocate the Bahá’í community through extensive social and economic restrictions. In addition to incidents such as the razing of Mirza Abbas Nuri’s home, which was preceded by the destruction of another important Bahá’í holy site in April 2004, this effort at slow strangulation — which must be considered as nothing less than cultural cleansing — can be most clearly observed in the government’s efforts to prevent Bahá’í youth from obtaining higher education.

In the early 1980s, the government banned Bahá’í youth from Iranian universities and colleges. In early 2004, however, apparently in response to international condemnation of the ban, the government publicly promised to change its policies, indicating that it would allow Bahá’í students to enroll in university in the autumn of that year. On that basis, about 1,000 Bahá’í youth took university entrance examinations.

In August 2004, the government released the results of those exams, on which Bahá’í students scored well. However, the government also falsely recorded the religious affiliation of each Bahá’í student, printing the word “Islam” in the field listing each Bahá’í student’s religion. Because their religious principle prevents them from even “pretending” to deny their faith, Bahá’ís were effectively precluded from matriculating. Some 800 Bahá’ís — those who had otherwise passed their examinations — were denied the right to education for the 2004-2005 school year in this manner.

Beyond the destruction of Bahá’í holy places and the denial of education to Bahá’í youth, the government has in recent years adopted a regime of arbitrary arrests, short term imprisonment, and the confiscation of homes and properties, designed to harass and intimidate the Bahá’í community. The community as a whole remains under numerous restrictions, with its administrative institutions dismantled, its worship practices restricted, and its right to equal protection under the law utterly refused.

The government’s long term strategy to destroy the Bahá’í community without bringing undue international attention was cruelly outlined in a secret 1991 memorandum that aimed at establishing policy regarding “the Bahá’í question.” Drafted by the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and signed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the document calls for a series of restrictions on the access of Bahá’ís to education and livelihood that is nothing less than a blueprint for the strangulation of the Bahá’í community. Most significantly, it lays out unequivocally the government’s overall objective — to ensure that the “progress and development” of the Bahá’í community “shall be blocked.” [See “The ISRCC document” for the full text.]

Many Bahá’ís have been tortured. The body of Dr. Nasir Vafai, a 49-year-old physician who was executed on 14 June 1981, was found to have a deep gash below his abdomen which ran all the way around his leg, severing the joint. High Resolution Image >

The Bahá’í community in Iran poses no threat to the Iranian authorities. The principles of the Bahá’í Faith require its followers to avoid partisan political involvement, subversive activity, and all forms of violence. The community has painstakingly avoided aligning itself in any fashion with any of the country’s governments, ideologies or opposition movements.

The recent destruction of holy sites and denial of education to Bahá’í youth, as well as the continuing measures aimed at harassing Bahá’ís and depriving them of their rightful property and livelihood, indicate that the government’s secret plan is still very much in effect. All of the evidence flatly contradicts the government’s oft-repeated contention that it has no campaign of persecution against the Bahá’ís.

The fact is that the Bahá’ís of Iran remain in a precarious state. They are denied the right to practice their faith freely, guaranteed under international human rights instruments such as the International Bill of Human Rights, to which Iran is a party. The administrative institutions of their Faith have been dismantled in accordance with a government edict. They live each day knowing that their government seeks to block their development as a community, and that even slight infractions can result in the deprivation of their livelihood, imprisonment or worse.

While defending their right to worship and practice their religion freely, as promised by international law, Bahá’ís seek only to be peaceful, law abiding and productive contributors to the advancement of Iranian society.