Iran launches crackdown on Bahá’í community

Members of minority faith group accused of spying for Israel suffer arrests and home demolitions

THE Bahá’í religious minority in Iran is facing its worst crackdown in decades after Tehran carried out home demolitions and arrested key leaders.

Several hundred Iranian agents descended this week on the village of Roushankouh in Mazandaran province, where many Bahá’í reside. They confiscated 20 hectares of land and bulldozed at least six homes.

Iran also arrested several Bahá’í community leaders it claims are spying for Israel, a charge the regime has over the years laid against the minority group without evidence.

Community leaders say Iran has closed down dozens of Bahá’í businesses across the country in recent days, with Tehran providing no evidence that any of those caught up in the crackdown have broken any laws.

The Bahá’ í faith, founded in 19th-century Iran, is no stranger to persecution and has frequently been used as a scapegoat when the country is facing internal turmoil or international pressure. Though they are the biggest religious minority in Iran, the regime considers their beliefs heretical.

The religion’s headquarters are in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, a fact that the regime uses to denounce the faith.

The latest round of arrests on spying charges could be linked to embarrassment in Tehran over a series of highprofile Israeli operations this year that exposed key aspects of the regime’s nuclear programme and led to the dismissal of its intelligence chief.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Bani Dugal, the Bahá’í International Commmunity’s [BIC] principal representative to the United Nations, said there were concerns that Iran could be embarking on its biggest round of persecutions since the Islamic Revolution.

“Bahá’ís are pretty familiar with persecution and attacks by the [Iranian] government. However, the vociferous nature of the current onslaught of attacks is nearly unprecedented,” said Ms Dugal. “It harkens back to the early years of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s and a little bit later when they were viciously attacking the community.”

During the persecutions of the 1980s, members of the Bahá’í faith were attacked by mobs, tortured and executed, while survivors were left homeless by arson attacks on their communities.

Ms Dugal said the BIC will be writing to the UN, urging it to raise the issue with international leaders.

“Every day there has been fresh news of the persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran, demonstrating that the Iranian authorities have a step-by-step plan that they are implementing to uproot the

‘It harkens back to the early years of the Islamic Republic when they were viciously attacking the community’

peaceful Bahá’í community from Iran,” said Padideh Sabeti, a London-based spokesman for the BIC.

The exact cause of the latest spate of arrests and demolitions is unclear, but it could be linked to a wider crackdown launched after the appointment of Iran’s new intelligence chief which has seen film directors, several foreigners and prominent reformist politicians arrested.

Founded in the mid-1800s, the Bahá’í movement is one of the world’s younger religions.

Its followers believe that the founders of the great world religions are all manifestations of the same God which point to the same fundamental truth.

There are around five to eight million Bahá’í worshippers worldwide, with its largest communities based in India, the United States and Kenya, as well as Iran, which hosts around 300,000 members.

The Telegraph approached Iranian authorities in London for comment but received no immediate response.