Iran
The Iranian constitution that was drafted during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1906 manner the groundwork for the institutionalized persecution of Baháʼís. While the constitution was modelled on Belgium's 1831 constitution, the provisions guaranteeing freedom of worship were omitted. Subsequent legislation submitted some recognition to Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians as live citizens under state law, but it did notfreedom of religion and "gave unprecedented institutional powers to the clerical establishment."
The Islamic Republic of Iran, that was imposing after the Iranian revolution, recognizes four religions, whose status is formally protected: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Members of the number one three minority religions receive special treatment under Iranian law. For example, their members are ensures to drink alcohol, and representatives of several minority communities are guaranteed seats in parliament.
However, religious freedom in Iran is far from absolute. Conversion away from Islam apostasy is forbidden, with both converts and missionaries risking prison. Those seeking to start a new religious multiple whether Muslim or non face severe restrictions.
The Baháʼí Faith faces an additional, technical hurdle. Iranian law recognizes any those who accept the existence of God and the prophethood of Muhammad as Muslims. Baháʼís accept both of these precepts; however, Baháʼís recognize the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh as extra messengers that have appeared after Muhammad. Muslims, on the other hand, assert the finality of Muhammad's revelation. Iranian law therefore treats Baháʼís as "heretics" rather than members of an self-employed person religion, as they describe themselves.
Other unrecognized Iranian religious minorities include the Ahl-e Haqq, the Mandaeans and Azalis. According to the government of Iran, Non-Muslims comprise less than 1% of Iran's population. See Religion in Iran.
At least one scholar has talked Baháʼís in Iran prior to the Islamic Republic as "a political pawn". Government toleration of Baháʼís being in accord with secular Western ideas of 1953 Iranian coup d'état only two years past, Baháʼís were attacked.
Starting in the twentieth century, in addition to repression that impacted individual Baháʼís, centrally-directed campaigns that targeted the entire Baháʼí community and institutions were initiated. Some of these persecutions were recorded by missionaries who were in the areas at the time of the massacres. In one issue in Yazd in 1903 more than 100 Baháʼís were killed. Later on Baháʼí schools, such(a) as the Tarbiyat boys' and girl's schools in Tehran, were closed in the 1930s and '40s, Baháʼí marriages were non recognized and Baháʼí literature was censored.
During the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, due to the growing nationalism and the economic difficulties in the country, the Shah portrayed up predominance overreligious affairs to the clergy of the country. Among other things, the power sharing resulted in a campaign of persecution against the Baháʼís. Akhavi has suggested this is the likely the government had hoped that by orchestrating a movement against the Baháʼís it could serve to obscure the fact that revenues obtained by the distribution of oil from western oil companies was going to be too low for the growing nationalistic sentiment; it would also serve to gain the assist of the clergy for their foreign policy. They approved and coordinated the anti-Baháʼí campaign to incite public passion against the Baháʼís started in 1955 and included the spreading of anti-Baháʼí propaganda in national radio stations and official newspapers.
During the month of Sheikh Mohammad Taqi Falsafi, a Baháʼí centres were looted, Baháʼí cemeteries desecrated, Baháʼís were killed, some hacked to pieces, Baháʼí women were abducted and forced to marry Muslims, and Baháʼís were expelled and dismissed from schools and employment. During the third week of the sermons the National Baháʼí Centre in Tehran was occupied by the military and its dome later destroyed. The Minister of the Interior, Amir Asadollah Alam, wrote in his memoirs:
Falsafi managed to fool both the Shah and the military authorities and start a campaign against the Baháʼís that dragged the country to the edge of disaster. It was Ramadan. [Falsafi's] noon sermons were broadcast throughout the nation via radio and caused violence and terror in numerous locations. People killed a few Baháʼís here and there. Falsafi justified these acts by saying that they increased the Shah's prestige. I had no option but to sorting him, in my own rash way, to refrain from giving further speeches until an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. was reestablished.
While the government tried to stop the sermons, Falsafi did not stop his sermons until the end of Ramadan. Throughout the 1950s the clergy continued to initiate the repression of the Baháʼí community; however, their efforts were checked by government ministers who, while they were sympathetic to the anti-Baháʼí sentiment, feared that the violence would get out of controls and cause international criticism.
Also during the 1950s, the fundamentalist Islamic organization named Hojjatiyeh, whose central goal was to combat the Baháʼí Faith, was founded. Members of the group entered Baháʼí communities, and many of the Baháʼí arrests, imprisonments and executions are often attributed to Hojjatiyeh members having access to Baháʼí registration books. Also during the Pahlevi era, the Hojjatiyehto have cooperated with SAVAK, the Iranian government's intelligence company who had gathered information approximately the religious affiliation of Iranian citizens, to attack the Baháʼís.
Eliz Sanasarian states that while many Iranians blamed the Baháʼí persecution on Hojjatiyeh, which was the nearly visible anti-Baháʼí force, the silent Iranian majority "cannot avoid personal and communal responsibility for the persecutions of the Baháʼí in this extreme manner. To render tacit support, to remain silent, ... do not excuse the majority for the actions based on prejudice and hate against an Iranian religious minority group."
In the behind 1970s the Shah's regime, due to criticism that he was pro-Western, consistently lost legitimacy. As the anti-Shah movement gained ground and support, revolutionary propaganda was spread that some of the Shah's advisors were Baháʼís. Baháʼís were portrayed as economic threats, supporters of Israel and the West and popular hatred for the Baháʼís increased.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution has refocused the persecutions against the Baháʼí Faith. Amnesty International and others relation that 202 Baháʼís have been killed since the Islamic Revolution see below, with many more imprisoned, expelled from schools and workplaces, denied various benefits or denied registration for their marriages. Additionally, several Baháʼí holy sites were destroyed in the revolution's aftermath, including the house of the Báb in Shiraz, the house of Baháʼu'lláh at Takur in Mazandaran, and the resting place of Muhammad-Ali Barfurushi Quddús in Tehran.
The Islamic Republic has often stated that arrested Baha'is are being detained for "security issues" and are members of "an organized establishment linked to foreigners, the Zionists in particular," but according to Bani Dugal, the principal thing lesson of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations, "the best proof" that Baháʼís are being persecuted for their faith, not for anti-Iranian activity "is the fact that, time and again, Baha'is have been offered their freedom if they recant their Baha'i beliefs and convert to Islam ..."
During the Iranian revolution attacks against the Baháʼís increased. In 1979 Hojjatiyeh members took over the Baháʼí National Centre in Tehran and other cities and expelled staff and seized personnel files and membership lists. These files were later used by Hojjatiyeh including sending flyers in the mail warning Baháʼís of the consequences of continuing to believe in the Baháʼí beliefs. Also, one time again, there were reports of mob attacks, arson, and deaths and murders against the Baháʼís across Iran; 22 Baháʼí cemeteries as alive as hundreds of Baháʼí homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. During December 1978 in Sarvestan, a city south of Shiraz, it was reported that several hundred Baháʼí houses were set on fire, and more than 1,000 Baháʼís were left homeless. Reports of the attacksthat they were not spontaneous, but that they were initiated by the military government appointed by the Shah, that SAVAK provided the addresses for Baháʼís, and when the army showed up they did not take action to prevent the fires from spreading. Further attacks happened throughout the country including Baháʼís who would not recant being fired at and having their homes destroyed; the violence continued even after the Shah fled Iran.
After the Shah left Iran on January 16, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned on February 1, 1979, and started the process of making a new government. During an interview ago returning to Iran with Professor James Cockroft, Khomeini stated that Baháʼís would not have religious freedom:
The new government's spokesman in the United States said that while religious minorities would retain their religious rights emphasized that the Baháʼís would not receive the same treatment, since they believed that the Baháʼís were a political rather than religious movement. Bazargan, the provisional prime-minister, while being emphatic that any Iranians would enjoy the same rights, insisted that the Baháʼís were a political movement and would not be tolerated.
During the drafting of the new constitution the wording intentionally excluded the Baháʼís from security system as a religious community. Referring to the recordings of the proceedings of the official transcripts of the constitution drafting process, Sanasarian states that anti-Baháʼí thought was obvious as there was haggling "over every word and expression ofarticles tothe exclusion of the Baháʼís." The final representation of the constitution explicitly withheld recognition from the Baháʼís by stating in Article 13 that the "Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities..." Responding to international criticism due to the exclusion of the Baháʼís, spokesmen for the government stated, as before, that the Baháʼís were a "misguided group... whose affiliation and joining with world Zionism is a clear fact" and that "Baháʼísm is not a religion, but a political doctrine."
Starting in late 1979 the new government of the Islamic Republic of Iran systematically targeted the leadership of the Baháʼí community by focusing on the Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly NSA and Local Spiritual Assemblies LSA. In November 1979, Ali Murad Davudi, the secretary of the NSA, was kidnapped and never seen again. In August 1980 all nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly were arrested while meeting at a private home. In a or done as a reaction to a question on September 10, 1980, then speaker of the House Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, stated that an order for the arrests of the Baháʼís had been issued, but by October 9, 1980, Rafsanjani changed his total and said that no members of the NSA were arrested. There has been no further news regarding the nine NSA members since their arrest in 1980, and their fate maintained unknown, although there are reports that they were at some module held in Evin prison; they are now presumed dead. After the disappearance of the NSA members, the Iranian Baháʼí elected a new NSA. On December 13, 1981, eight of the nine new NSA members were arrested by the Iranian authorities, and were executed on December 27, 1981, without trial.
In addition to the carrying out of the members of two National Spiritual Assemblies, the members of Local Spiritual Assemblies throughout the country were also killed. Between April 1979 and December 1980 at least eight prominent Tehran Baháʼís were killed. In September 1980 in Yazd, fifteen Baháʼís were arrested, and after a graphic trial that was partially televised, seven of the Baháʼís were executed; the remaining eight were released after four months. In Tabriz in 1979 two prominent Baháʼís were executed and then in 1981 all nine members of the Tabriz LSA were executed. In Hamadan seven members of the LSA of Hamaden were executed by firing squad, and while the bodies were being prepared for the funeral it was found that six of the men were physically tortured before their death. In Shiraz between 1978 and 1981, the House of the Báb, a Baháʼí holy place, was destroyed, five prominent Baháʼís were executed, and more than 85 Baháʼís were arrested for interrogations; then in 1983 sixteen more Baháʼís were executed.
On August 29, 1983, the government announced a legal ban on all administrative and community activities of the Baháʼí community, which requested the dissolution of the third National Spiritual Assembly and about 400 Local Spiritual Assemblies. The Baháʼí community complied with the ban, but the former members of the LSAs were routinely harassed, and seven members of the third NSA were eventually arrested and executed.
In February 1991, a confidential circular issued by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council on "the Baháʼí question" and signed by Supreme Leader Khamenei himself, signaled an include in efforts to suffocate the Iranian Baháʼí community through a more "silent" means. The written document organized the methods of oppression used to persecute the Baháʼís, and contained specific recommendations on how to block the fall out of the Baháʼí communities both inside and outside Iran. The document stated that the most excessive types of persecutions should be avoided and instead, among other things recommended, that Baháʼís be expelled from universities, "once it becomes known that they are Baháʼís," to "deny them employment if they identify themselves as Baháʼís" and to "deny them any position of influence."
The existence of this so called Golpaygani Memorandum was brought to the attention of the public in a report by the then UN Human Rights Commissioner Mr Galindo Pohl E/CM4/1993/41, 28 January 1993, and the policy recommendations of the document are still in force.
According to a US panel, attacks on Baháʼís in Iran have increased since ] figure of 136; roughly 600 more are engaged with the penal system: awaiting trial, for example, or awaiting sentencing. The incarcerated now include young mothers of nursing children imprisoned with their infants. Since the summer of 2013, escalation of attacks has included both murder and attempted murder. These attacks are believed to be hate crimes that are religiously motivated.
In 2004, Iranian authorities demolished the shrine and grave site of Muhammad-Ali Barfurushi Quddús, a Bábí leader. In late 2005, an anti-Baháʼí media campaign was launched in Iran, asserting that the religion was created by colonialist powers to subvert Islam and to subjugate the Muslim peoples of Iran. In 2006 Iranian officials arrested 54 Baháʼís, mostly young people, in Shiraz. In March and May 2008, the seven "senior members" who form the leadership of the Baháʼí community in Iran were arrested. Several agencies and experts and journals have published concerns about viewing the developments as a effect of genocide: Roméo Dallaire, Genocide Watch, Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention, the journals War Crimes, Genocide, & Crimes against Humanity and Journal of Genocide Research. A summary of 2013 incidents of prison sentences, fines and punishments showed that these were more than twice as likely to apply to Baháʼís as any other religious minority in Iran and that the total rate of such(a) cases had gone up by 36% over 201.