Interfaith Harmony Week |06 February 2016

Bahá'í community in Seychelles condemns religious persecution in Iran

 During the International Interfaith Harmony Week in the first week of February, we appreciate that in Seychelles, a melting pot of colours, races, religions and opinions, people generally live peacefully. They tolerate and even respect other people’s beliefs, opinions and religious affiliations.

This is not the case in many parts of the world!

Many religious minorities including members of the Bahá'í Faith – the largest religious minority in Iran – have been the subject of a relentless campaign of persecution.  This persecution has impacted the lives of generations, from young infant to frail elderly. Iranian law and official policy denies Bahá'ís their civil, political, economic and cultural rights to education, work, freedom of religion, freedom from arbitrary detention and others. In the absence of any legal protection within Iran, the international community is morally bound to protect their rights. 

Some 20,000 men, women and children in the 19th century, including its Herald, the Bab, at the young age of 30, were put to death in the most horrific ways and watered the streets of Persia with their blood. They were blown from mouths of cannons, set alight with burning candles in their flesh, molten lead poured down their throats, children cut alive on mothers’ bellies, flogged to death, bastinadoed….the list goes on and on….

In modern days, since the early 1980s, over 200 Bahá'ís have been executed or murdered, thousands arrested, detained and interrogated, and tens of thousands more deprived of jobs, pensions and educational opportunities. The community’s holy places, cemeteries and properties have been confiscated, vandalised or destroyed; and many individuals have had homes and other property seized or damaged.

Furthermore, Iran has so far been reviewed twice under the Universal Periodic Review – a UN mechanism to review the human rights record of all countries – once in February 2010 and again in October 2014. The Bahá'í International Community, in an analysis of the implementation of those recommendations related to the situation of the Bahá'ís in Iran which were accepted by Iran in 2010 as well as 2014, discovered that not a single one pertaining to the Bahá'ís in the country was implemented[1]. By failing to abide by its commitments and assurances made to the international community, Iran has gravely undermined the entire UPR process. Since 2004, over 1,000 Bahá'ís have been arrested in Iran, solely because of their beliefs. There are currently some 80 Bahá'ís in prison. Many have been kept in solitary confinement for long periods. Most of those arrested have been detained for weeks or months before being released on bail, and bail demands have been very high, requiring families to hand over deeds to property, and business or work licenses.

Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the government has been carrying out a systematic campaign to deny Bahá'ís the right to employment. In many hundreds of cases, the authorities have taken measures to make it impossible for Bahá'ís to earn a living. As of 2007, at least 780 incidents of direct economic persecution against Iranian Bahá'ís have been documented by the Bahá'í international community. These include shop closings, dismissals, the actual or threatened revocation of business licenses, and other actions to suppress the economic activity of Bahá’ís. This represents a minimum number, given the difficulty of getting accurate information about human rights violations from Iran.

Members of the Bahá'í Faith have long been denied access to higher education. It is an official policy of the government to expel Bahá'ís from universities and vocational training institutions as soon as they are identified as members of the Bahá'í community.

The Seychelles Interfaith Council (Sifco) and Citizens Engagement Platform (Ceps)have expressed solidarity with the Baha’i community of Seychelles in :

• condemning any form of persecution based on religious convictions;

• thanking the government of Seychelles for supporting the UN General Assembly resolution of 2015 on Human Rights concerns in Iran;

• appealing to the government of Seychelles to continue to do all in its power at the UN Human Rights Council, convening in February/March in Geneva, to curb these attacks on innocent civilians in Iran.

The accompanying photos are of some of those martyrs who refused to deny their Faith and were executed.

Contributed by the Office of External Affairs, Baha’i Faith