PM underlines concern for Iran's Bahá'ís at historic meeting with Bahá'í delegation
Posted: 15 Jul 2009
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has underlined the UK government's concern over the seven Bahá'í leaders being detained in Iran.
Mr Brown's remarks were made at a meeting which took place this afternoon at the Prime Minister's office in the Houses of Parliament, attended by Lembit Öpik, MP for Montgomeryshire – who is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Friends of the Bahá'ís group – and a delegation of three Bahá'ís, including two members of the national governing council of the Bahá'í Faith in the United Kingdom.
It was the first ever meeting between a UK Prime Minister and representatives of the Bahá'í community, which was established in Britain in 1898.
The prisoners – five men and two women – were arrested in spring 2008. Prior to their arrest they were members of an informal committee looking after the affairs of Iran's 300,000 strong Bahá'í community, the country's largest non-Muslim religious minority. Charges against the seven have been reported in government-controlled mass media as "espionage for Israel", "insulting religious sanctities" and "propaganda against the Islamic republic". A further accusation of "spreading corruption on earth" has also been cited.
For more than a year, the seven have been detained in Tehran's notorious Evin prison without charge or access to their legal counsel, the Nobel laureate Dr Shirin Ebadi. Expectations that a trial would take place earlier this week were not realised. Some 30 other Bahá'ís are currently in prison in Iran.
The Bahá'í delegation was led by Dr Kishan Manocha, Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United Kingdom. Also present were the Honourable Barney Leith, Director of Diplomatic Relations for the UK Bahá'í community, and Mrs Bahar Tahzib. Mrs Tahzib – originally from Iran, but now living in Sussex – shared with the Prime Minister her first hand experience of religious persecution. Her father Yusuf Subhani was executed in Iran for being a Bahá'í in June 1980. Her uncle, Mr Jamaloddin Khanjani, is one the seven detained Bahá'í leaders in Iran.
"My uncle is 75 years old and he has been kept in unsuitable conditions for more than a year," Mrs Tahzib told the Prime Minister. "This is clearly a cause of great concern for the family and their wish is for a fair trial."
"I was very touched by the Prime Minister's genuine expressions of sympathy and concern," said Mrs Tahzib after the meeting.
"We expressed our gratitude to the Prime Minister for the government's ongoing support of our persecuted co-religionists in Iran," added Dr Manocha, "and we particularly thanked Mr Brown for his personal support and understanding. We raised with him the need for the seven Bahá'í leaders to be released immediately – and that if Iran refuses to do this, a public trial must be held that respects internationally recognized trial standards."
"Recent events in Iran have clearly demonstrated to the world the methods utilized by the government – particularly the manipulation of the judiciary process, to arbitrarily impose its will on those it declares to be its enemies," said Mr Öpik. "The examples of the case of Roxana Saberi, the protestors picked up on the streets, in their homes and hospital beds, and the arrests of foreign and domestic journalists, among others, illustrate a pattern of arbitrary arrest, coercion, false confessions, baseless charges, and summary judgments."
"The persecution of the Bahá'ís in Iran is a matter of religious prejudice and has nothing to do with state security. The seven – along with the 30 other Bahá'ís currently in prison in Iran – are being held solely because of their religious beliefs. Their imprisonment and impending trial are part of a systematic effort to dismantle the Bahá'í leadership as part of a larger process to destroy the Bahá'í community in Iran," said Dr Manocha.
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