Bahai representative: 7 believers detained in Iran innocent

[Phx_Dem]

"The argument for a ploy with Israel is a bald-faced lie and deceptive. The Iranian government is taking advantage of the fact that the Bahai community’s governing council is based in Israel,” Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Bahai International Community to the United Nations, said Monday.

In a statement posted on the community’s website, the Bahai International Community denied the allegations that seven Bahai individuals “admitted” to having had set up an “illegal organization” with connections to a number of countries including Israel.

“We openly deny the allegations that Bahai believers in Iran are involved in such underground activity,” Dugal said. “The Bahai community is not involved in political matters. Their only ‘crime’ is their belief in the (Bahai) faith.”

The Iranian Resalat daily newspaper reported Sunday that an Iranian official had claimed seven Bahai individuals were detained and confessed to having had established an unlawful organization taking it orders from Israel and a number of other countries, in an attempt to undermine the Islamic republic.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3577511,00.html

Background on the Bahai in Iran:

In Iran, repression of the Baha’i community is official government policy.

This policy is outlined in a previously secret memorandum that was uncovered and published by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 1993. Written by the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council in 1991 and signed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, this document provides a blueprint for the suppression of the Iranian Baha’i community. It contains specific guidelines for dealing with the Baha'is so that “their progress and development are blocked.”

Some 300,000 Baha’is live throughout Iran, making the Baha’i Faith the country’s largest minority religion. Baha’is have been targets of discrimination and violence in Iran since the religion began there in the mid-nineteenth century. More than 200 Baha’is were killed in Iran between 1978 and 1998, the majority by execution, and thousands more were imprisoned.

Today the Iranian government regards Baha’is as apostates and “unprotected infidels.” Baha’is in Iran have no legal rights, and they are not permitted to elect leaders of their community. The Baha’i Faith has no clergy, and community affairs are coordinated by democratically elected governing councils called Spiritual Assemblies.

Baha'is in Iran are systematically denied jobs, pensions and the right to inherit property. More than 10,000 Baha’is have been dismissed from government and university posts since Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Baha'is have been barred from institutions of higher education since 1980.

http://www.bahai.us/persecution-bahais-iran