Chapter II

A Campaign of Cultural Cleansing

Muna Mahmudnizhad, 17, was one of 10 Bahá’í women executed in Shiraz on 18 June 1983. The primary charge against her: teaching Bahá’í children’s classes. High Resolution Image >

n the world today, Iran seeks to portray itself as a deserving partner in international trade, inter-governmental affairs, and other cooperative activities. Understanding that its international reputation on human rights is critical, Iran has embarked on a multi-pronged effort to convince the world at large that it has largely abandoned the practices of execution, torture, imprisonments, and repression that marked the early days of the Islamic revolution. Since 2002, for example, Iran has engaged in a series of “dialogues” with the European Union and others on human rights and trade.

The story of its ongoing persecution of the Bahá’í community of Iran offers a singular litmus test of the Iranian government’s degree of sincerity in meeting globally accepted human rights standards. Bahá’ís hold no political ambitions, are committed to non-violence, and seek only to help in the redevelopment of their native land. Yet, for more than 25 years, they have been persecuted wholly for their religious beliefs.

Consider the following images:

• After executing Bahá’ís by firing squad, Iranian officials in the 1980s would frequently demand payment for the price of the bullets from the families of the victims.
• Ten Bahá’í women, arrested and charged with the “crime” of teaching religious classes for children and youth, were hanged, one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, as the others stood by. Prisoners who watched the 1983 hangings said that the executioners had hoped to force the younger women to recant their Faith, or even simply to say they were not Bahá’ís. None did, all preferring to die rather than to renounce their beliefs.
• Bahá’ís, seeking simply to educate young people who had been excluded by government decree from higher education in Iran, set up their own college classes in private homes around the country in the late 1980s. In 1998, Iranian officials raided some 500 private homes where such classes were held, arresting 30 teachers and confiscating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of books, furniture and educational equipment.
• Bahá’í holy sites, including those associated with the Iranian-born Founders of the Faith, have been systematically destroyed throughout the country, by officials using everything from pickaxes to bulldozers.
High Resolution Image >

The House of the Báb in Shiraz, Iran, one of the most holy sites in the Bahá’í world, was destroyed by Revolutionary Guardsmen in 1979 and later razed by the government. The photo at top was taken before the demolition took place, shown at bottom. High Resolution Image >
• When Bahá’ís in Yazd approached government officials in late 2004 to call attention to their persecutions, they were warned that any public complaints might cause the Iranian public to rise up against them, invade and burn down their homes, assault them, and possibly even kill them. Within weeks, indeed, Bahá’í homes were invaded, Bahá’ís were beaten, the Bahá’í graveyard was desecrated, and at least one Bahá’í-owned business was set ablaze. Evidence emerged that the police chief, who in theory should have protected the Bahá’ís, ordered the attacks.

These and other images and events add up to nothing less than a systematic campaign aimed at the complete eradication of an entire minority community. It is, in short, a government-led effort at cultural cleansing.

Although the persecution of the Bahá’í Faith in Iran has its roots in Iranian history [See “The Historical Background”], the current campaign of systematic persecution began with the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, virtually the entire leadership of the Iranian Bahá’í community was arrested and executed or disappeared. In all, more than 200 Bahá’ís have been killed or executed since the Islamic Republic’s founding, and nearly 1,000 Bahá’ís have been imprisoned.

The campaign at that time openly sought the wholesale destruction of the Bahá’í community. Thousands of Bahá’ís also were fired from jobs, deprived of pensions, and excluded from education (including primary and secondary education). Bahá’í properties, sacred sites, and cemeteries were confiscated and destroyed. All manner of rights to religious freedom, worship and assembly were abrogated.

All of this has been well documented. Governments, non-governmental organizations, and the news media have widely reported on the persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran. In the 1980s and 1990s, the international community rose up and condemned this oppression through a series of resolutions at the United Nations and in other venues.

For a time, conditions seemed to improve. In the late 1990s, the killings all but stopped. Most of those Bahá’ís held in prison were released. Bahá’í children were allowed to re-enroll in primary and secondary schools in most parts of the country. Some Bahá’ís were allowed to obtain new business licenses, and restrictions on other forms of economic activity appeared to lessen.

At the same time, however, those who followed events in Iran closely could see that the government never gave up its plans of eliminating the Bahá’í community as a viable entity in Iranian society. Indeed, continuing through today, the Bahá’í community has been kept off guard through the constant threat of arbitrary arrest and harassment. Restrictions on owning businesses and property have remained in force. And Bahá’í youth have been prevented from entering institutions of higher education.

The Bahá’í Question

Iran’s anti-Bahá’í actions are not random acts, but deliberate government policy. In 1993, concrete evidence emerged that the government had in fact adopted a secret blueprint for the quiet strangulation of the Bahá’í community.

A photocopy of the 1991 memorandum from the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council on “the Bahá’í question.” High Resolution Image >

That evidence came in the form of a secret memorandum, which had been drawn up by the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council (ISRCC) in 1991. [See page 18 for complete text of the ISRCC document.]

Stamped “confidential,” the document was prepared at the request of the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the then President of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The memorandum was signed by Hujjatu’l Islam Seyyed Mohammad Golpaygani, Secretary of the Council, and approved by Mr. Khamenei, who added his signature to the document.

The memorandum came to light in the 1993 report by UN Special Representative Reynaldo Galindo Pohl. According to Mr. Galindo Pohl, the document came as “reliable information” just as the annual report on Iran to the UN Commission on Human Rights was being completed.

The memorandum specifically calls for Iran’s Bahá’ís to be treated in such a way “that their progress and development shall be blocked,” providing for the first time conclusive evidence that the campaign against the Bahá’ís is centrally directed by the government.

The document indicates, for example, that the government aims to keep the Bahá’ís illiterate and uneducated, living only at a subsistence level, and fearful at every moment that even the tiniest infraction will bring the threat of imprisonment or worse.

Although some of its provisions appear to grant a measure of protection to Bahá’ís, its overall impact is to create an environment where the Bahá’í community of Iran will be quietly eliminated.

The memorandum says, for example, that all Bahá’ís should be expelled from universities; that they shall be denied “positions of influence,” and instead only be allowed to “lead a modest life similar to that of the population in general”; and even that “employment shall be refused to persons identifying themselves as Bahá’ís.”

The provisions regarding arrest, imprisonment and punishment can be read in two ways. The document says:

(a) With regard to the general condition of Bahá’ís, the following guidelines are hereby adopted: (i) they are not to be expelled from the country without reason; (ii) they are not to be detained, imprisoned or punished without reason; (iii) the government’s treatment of them shall be such that their progress and development shall be blocked.

At first glance, it might seem that the term “without reason” is a move towards greater justice, inasmuch as virtually all of the detentions, arrests and imprisonments of Bahá’ís in the past have been without cause. However, when the entire memo is understood in the context of what to do about “the Bahá’í question,” it is clear that the directive is merely instructing officials to be sure that they justify their actions before they make any moves against a Bahá’í. It in no way promises any sort of protection.

The memorandum also belies its underlying intentions when it says that Bahá’ís will be allowed to go to school only if they do not identify themselves as Bahá’ís, and that they should be sent to schools “with a strong religious ideology.” The aim here, obviously, is to wrest Bahá’í children from their faith.

Iran’s Bahá’ís have experienced persecution in every region of the country. High Resolution Image >

Ominously, the memorandum says that “A plan must be devised to confront and destroy their cultural roots outside the country.” That Iran would like to reach outside its borders to stamp out the Bahá’í Faith makes clear the degree of blind animosity felt by the government towards Bahá’ís.

In the years since the memorandum was written, the Bahá’í community has experienced persecution in all of the areas outlined by it: Bahá’ís have been detained, imprisoned, and falsely charged with “spying”; they have been denied access to education and sources of livelihood; they have been stripped of all influence in Iranian society and deprived of their right to religious freedom.

Indeed, as the next chapter indicates, the Iranian government has focused on social, economic and cultural repression aimed quite clearly at carrying out the plan endorsed by the “Bahá’í question” memorandum.