Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Guardian: Article Alerting to Destruction of 50 Homes, Persecution of Baha'is in Iran


Attack on Iran's Baha'i is a Human Rights Outrage

Posted: 17 Jul 2010

The destruction of 50 Baha'i homes demonstrates the Iranian government's disregard for its international obligations

Written by Barney Leith for the Guardian

The homes of 50 Baha'i farming families were razed in Ivel, Iran on 26 June. Photograph: Baha'i World News Service

The homes of 50 Baha'i farming families were razed in Ivel, Iran on 26 June. Photo: Baha'i World News Service


["]The governor general is like a physician … if he feels that there is a malignant tumour in the body of the society, he tries to remove it." Such was the official explanation given to Natoly Derakhshan, a Baha'i from the village of Ivel in Mazandaranprovince, Iran, after the homes of 50 Baha'i farming families were razed in Ivel on 26 June.

If farmers strike you as an unlikely tumour in a country that earns 20% of its GDP from agriculture, then perhaps you do not know the story of the minority Baha'i faith in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Razing the Baha'i homes in Ivel is the latest step in an ongoing campaign. Baha'i farmers left Ivel several years ago because of local harassment and persecution. They return once a year to harvest their crops. This exercise of their basic rights to live in peace and work their land has nevertheless required permits from the provincial government. And now their property and livelihoods have been destroyed altogether.

Speaking to Radio Farda, the Persian-language station of Radio Free Europe, Derakhshan was asked whether the locals who demolished the Baha'i homes had government support. "We do not know and cannot say that it was ordered by someone," he said. But Derakhshan asked questions of his own. "What do you think?" he asked. "How could 50 homes be demolished without prior arrangements?" Derakhshan was told that letters of complaint the Baha'is had written to the authorities were "in opposition to the regime".

In Mazandaran, as in much of Iran, the persecution of the Baha'is is nothing new. "Baha'is have lived in this area for more than 100 years," said Diane Alai, representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations. "But in 1983, a few years after the Iranian revolution, at least 30 families from this and neighbouring villages were put on buses and expelled." In the same period, over 200 Baha'is have been executed or killed, hundreds have been jailed, and tens of thousands have been denied their livelihood or an education.

Today 35 Baha'is are imprisoned, among whom are the seven former leaders of the Iranian Baha'i community, arrested in 2008 on allegations of espionage, propaganda and "corruption on earth". These charges warrant death under Iranian law. Their counsel, the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, has said that "there is nothing, no reason" to convict the seven Baha'is. They have been held in Evin prison, "under conditions which clearly violate international standards" according to Bani Dugal, the principal representation of the Baha'i International Community to the UN. "They have neither beds nor bedding," she added, are permitted only two hours of fresh air a week, and are crammed into cells that restrict movement. Family contact is usually restricted to a 10-minute phone call once a week.

The treatment of the Baha'is in Iran is an outrage, a constant violation of human rights and an example of the Iranian government's disregard for its international obligations. At its root lies a religious fanaticism that seeks to grind away the 300,000 Baha'is of Iran. Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, veteran of Rwanda and Canadian senator, recently warned his senate that the "state-sanctioned persecution" of the Baha'is in Iran resembles "a nation leading its way into a potential genocide". The Baha'is are the largest religious minority of Iran but their faith is denied by the constitution. Despite being branded as apostates and spies, no Baha'i has ever been found plausibly guilty of the crimes with which they are accused. In the words of the founder of the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah, Baha'is are enjoined to work for "the good of the world and the happiness of the nations". In Mazandaran, both those hopes have been razed to the ground.


Source: Only Democracy for Iran, http://www.onlydemocracy4iran.com/2010/07/09/attack-on-irans-bahai-is-a-human-rights-outrage/



Nine Closed Court Files Reopened in Renewed Efforts to Persecute Baha'is



Posted: 21 Jul 2010

Mashhad (Persian: مشهد, ‹Mašhad›, literally the place of martyrdom) is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world.

Mashhad (literally, "the place of martyrdom") is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world.


15 July 2010 [24 Tir 1389]

HRANA News – Two Baha'i citizens, residing in Mashad, have been arrested in order to carry out their court order for prison [sentences].


HRANA reports that Nassrin Ghadiri and Sima Rajabian, who had been previously (2005) sentenced by the Khorasan Province Razavi Review Court to a 2-year limited prison [sentence], on 15 July 2010 introduced themselves to the Circle of Court Order Implementation, were [summarily] arrested and [then] transferred to the Vakil Abad prison in Mashhad.

The files of these two Baha'i citizens, related to their arrest in [2005], had been declared closed. But in keeping with [the increased persecution] on Baha'is [over the past year] the files of these two, along with seven other Baha'is, have [lately been reopened]. These 9 Baha'i citizens had been sentenced to 2 to 5 years of punitive imprisonment by the Mashad Revolutionary Court.

[Out of] these 9 Baha'is, [two], Nahid Ghadiri and Davar Nabilzadeh, have so far been transferred to Vakil Abad Prison in Mashad [to serve] their 5-year prison sentences."


Translation by Iran Press Watch (slightly edited - Editor)

Sources: http://www.hra-news.org/1389-01-27-05-24-07/2744-1.html

http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/6227


Wednesday, July 21, 2010

BBC - Homes (50) of Baha'is Bulldozed in Northern Iran


BBC news is on the job with news of the relentless forces of fanaticism attacking the Baha'is of Iran, now in the village of Ivel. Read the full story here. Official accounts from the Baha'i International Community available here and here.

Images taken from a video, shot on a mobile telephone in the village of Ivel, show fiercely burning fires and several Baha'i-owned properties reduced to rubble.

BBC News

IDDLE EAST


Iran's Bahai community fear rise in persecution

Posted: 04 Jul 2010

By Kasra Naji



First there are the images of wooden beams on fire. Then buildings come into view, some without windows and doors, others reduced to rubble.


The shaky mobile phone footage posted on YouTube by Iranian human rights activists shows scenes of destruction filmed secretly from inside a car.

The activists say the footage shows the results of an attack on the properties of Bahai residents in Ivel, a village in northern Iran.

They also say that non-Bahai residents supported the demolitions.

Bahai groups outside Iran have also received eyewitness reports from Ivel.

The witnesses said that several days before the bulldozers moved in, some people in the village signed a petition demanding the expulsion of their Bahai neighbours.

Many Bahais had left already: a number of families had fled previous attacks on Bahai property in Ivel. In 2007, for example, six houses were torched.

However, this time the Bahais left in the village complained to the police in the nearest town, Kiasar.

The police denied that there was a petition against them and refused to provide any protection.

The reports from Ivel residents say that by June 22, almost 50 houses belonging to Bahais had been flattened.