Persecution of the Baha’is in Iran

It is coming to a crucial time in the Persecution of the Baha’is in Iran. It’s been almost a year now that seven members of Iran’s Baha’i Organizing Committee have been detained and imprisoned without access to legal counsel. The charges are of espionage for Israel and claiming to be followers of the Baha’i Faith. The former is completely ridiculous where as the latter is true, but being a Baha’i is only a crime in countries that are run by fanatic Islamic clergy. One thing we can do to help is to make the world aware of this issue so please spread the word.

Recently, the Baha’i International Community has sent a letter to Iran’s Prosecutor General, which starts out:

Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi
Prosecutor General
Islamic Republic of Iran

Your Honor,

Your recent announcement regarding the administrative affairs of the Bahá’ís of Iran has brought to the arena of public debate issues which not only affect the safety and livelihood of the members of that community but also have profound implications for the future of every citizen of that esteemed nation. The steps that have been taken to formulate the response of the Iranian Bahá’í community to your announcement have surely been communicated to you. The Yaran and the Khademin, the small groups that have been attending to the spiritual and social needs of the several hundred thousand Bahá’ís of Iran, the former at the national level and the latter at the local, have expressed their willingness to bring to a close their collective functioning. This decision has been made for no other reason than to demonstrate yet again the goodwill that the Bahá’ís have consistently shown to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the past thirty years.

The Universal House of Justice has assured us that the disruption in the functioning of these groups need not be seen as a cause for concern. There is no doubt in the minds of millions of Bahá’ís residing in virtually every country around the world—nor in the minds of many others who are watching these events with impartiality and who are aware of the historical development of the Faith—that the Bahá’ís in Iran will find ways of managing the spiritual life of their community, as they have done for generations over the past one hundred and sixty-five years of persecution. However, given the gravity of the accusations leveled against the Yaran and the Khademin, we feel obliged, as the representatives at the United Nations of one hundred and seventy-nine National Spiritual Assemblies encircling the globe, to bring certain fundamental points to your attention in an open letter and request that you examine them with the sense of fairness they deserve…

The full text of the letter can be found here: http://iran.bahai.us/2009/03/06/bahai-international-community-sends-letter-to-irans-prosecutor-general/