Amnesty International reports arbitrary arrests, torture and use of death penalty in Iran 30 years after Islamic revolution

(Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk) - Human rights abuses including arbitrary arrest, torture and extensive use of the death penalty still persist in Iran, Amnesty International warned today on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Kurds and members of the Baha'i faith are "particularly harshly treated", especially in provincial areas where scrutiny by human rights groups is harder, according to a new report.

Seven Baha'i community leaders are currently detained without charge or trial in Tehran's Evin prison and have not been granted access to lawyers, it says.

Amnesty is not allowed to carry out research in Iran, which is one of only a few countries, including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Turkmenistan, that are routinely closed to human rights organisations

The "vast scope and scale" of violations in the early years after the 1979 revolution declined during the period of reform under President Mohammed Khatami from 1997 to 2005, the report adds. But hopes for improvement "have been firmly crushed" since the hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005.

Last December the authorities closed down the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, founded by the Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.


"A host of vaguely worded laws and practices relating to national and public security, slander, defamation of state officials, insults to Islam and other aspects of freedom of expression, association and belief are used to prosecute those who dissent, including those seeking to promote and protect human rights," said Amnesty.

Punishments for such "offences" range from imprisonment, flogging and fines to the death penalty. Individuals may also be sentenced to deprivation of their rights, such as a ban on employment in certain sectors or enforced residency far from their homes.

Amnesty also protested that the "vast majority" of serious violations committed since the revolution have never been investigated – especially the 1988 prison massacres of political prisoners.

Recently the authorities bulldozed a mass grave site at Khavaran, near Tehran, where many of those executed are thought to be buried. Relatives of those killed have been arrested and imprisoned after gatherings to commemorate the executions.

Iran, said Amnesty, is second only to China in the number of executions recorded annually. At least 346 people were executed in 2008, including child offenders. Two executions were carried out by stoning.

Legislation passed last year extended the application of the death penalty to audiovisual crimes such as the production of pornographic material. Other legislation currently being debated would introduce capital punishment for apostasy, heresy and witchcraft.

Methods of ill-treatment described by former detainees include beatings, suspension from a height, insults, threats of rape, sexual abuse, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, being forced to stand in stress positions and solitary confinement

"People in Iran are still enduring a catalogue of human rights abuses, 30 years after the Islamic Revolution," said AI International UK director Kate Allen. "Amnesty continues to record executions, torture and the arrest of people who voice dissenting opinions. The Iranian authorities should turn their back on torture and unfair trials and release all prisoners of conscience."


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Iran Announces Trial of Baha’i Leadership
03:10 pm on Feb 11th 2009 admin

The Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) announced today that charges had been laid against the seven imprisoned members of the national-level committee that coordinates the activities for the Iranian Baha’i community. The report quoted deputy Tehran prosecutor Hassan Haddad as having said “the case will be sent to the revolutionary court next week” and that these Baha’is are accused of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic republic.” Agence France Presse (AFP) has posted the following piece, Iran to try Bahais for spying for Israel.

The Baha’is deny categorically these charges. No evidence against them has been brought to light. The seven members of a national Baha’i coordinating committee were arrested in March and May of 2008 and have been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison. At no time during their incarceration have they been given access to their legal counsel, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi. Mrs. Ebadi has been harassed, intimidated, and threatened since taking on their case and has not been given access to their case files. The prosecution of the leaders is just one step in a 30-year-long systematic campaign orchestrated by the government to eliminate the Baha’i community as a viable entity in Iran, the birthplace of the Bahá’í Faith. Documentary evidence exists on this campaign, Documents | Persecution of Baha’is in Iran.

At this time, some thirty other Baha’is are imprisoned in Iran solely on account of their religion. Close to 80 more Baha’is, have been required to post deeds of property and business licenses as collateral for bail. They have likewise been falsely charged and are awaiting trial.


The Baha’i World News Service has put out the following statement from the Baha’i International Community, Jailed Iranian Baha’ia should be released, not put on trial, says BIC

Baha’is express gratitude for open letter of support

15 February 2009

NEW YORK — The Baha’i International Community has issued a statement of gratitude to the Iranian intellectuals, scholars, writers, journalists, activists, and artists throughout the world who signed an open letter apologizing for their silence during Iran’s long-running persecution of the Baha’is.

The open letter from the Iranians – dated 3 February and signed so far by 243 men and women living in 19 countries – had asked Baha’is to forgive them “for the wrongs committed against the Baha’i community of Iran” over the last century and a half.

“We will no longer be silent when injustice is visited upon you,” the letter said after enumerating some of the ways Baha’is have been persecuted, from “barbaric murders” to depriving youth of higher education.

In response, the Baha’i International Community told the signatories that the letter “brought a degree of solace and relief to the pain that your Baha’i fellow citizens endure.”

“On their behalf and that of the Baha’is throughout the world we convey our profound gratitude and appreciation for a deed of such historical moment,” the Baha’i message said, referring to the publication of the open letter.

The letter was particularly significant, said the Baha’i response, in that it rejected the milieu of intimidation created by Iranian authorities throughout the decades that served to silence “those fair-minded and informed individuals who had always wished to rise up” in support of the Baha’is.

Indeed, in a press statement yesterday, the organizers behind the letter said that many more people would like to sign.

“We are confident,” their statement said, “that many more individuals, responsible and humane individuals, both inside and outside Iran, will add their seal of approval to it, as they become aware of such a letter, and we hope that the independent and committed Iranian media will join us in disseminating this message.”

The open letter began with the heading “We are ashamed! A century and a half of oppression and silence is enough!”

“We are ashamed that during the last 30 years, the killing of Baha’is solely on the basis of their religious beliefs has gained legal status and over 200 Baha’is have been slain on this account,” said one clause.

“We are ashamed that a group of intellectuals have justified coercion against the Baha’i community of Iran,” the letter continued.

The letter ended thus: “We stand by you in achieving all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights. Let us join hands in replacing hatred and ignorance with love and tolerance.”

The Baha’i response also ended with a statement of hope: “The ardent hope of Iranian Baha’is is to be able to labor, shoulder to shoulder, with their compatriots for the progress and exaltation of their country that it may assume its seat of honor and glory among the family of nations.”

What percent of Iran does the Baha'i encompass? Are they Sunni Muslims or a Kurdish clan?

There are about three hundred fifty thousand Baha'is in Iran and of course this is an estimate since the Faith is illegal there, that is they do not allow Baha'is to function or have meetings so no one knows for sure..Baha'is constitute the countries largest non-Muslim religious minority. It is about 1 per cent or so.

Sunnis are about 8-9 % but they are also Muslims. Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslims.

see:

Iranian Religious Groups


- Art

Then why do they risk it? What is illegal about it over there?

I'm unsure what you mean.. Baha'is cannot just deny their Faith because it's dangerous to be one..

Fanatic Muslim elements are in control in Iran and they have determined to eliminate the Baha'is using any means necessary. They have been involved in a thirty year campaign to seize Baha'i properties, execute Baha'is, refuse them any legal representation or allow them access to higher education.

Here's a site that will summarize it for you!

The Bahá’Ã* Question - Appendix I - Bahá’Ã*s killed since 1978

You can also read some of our recent updates on the persecution of Baha'is on this Forum.

- Art

Last night we had an interfaith prayer meeting at our local Baha'i Center about the situation in Iran. I went out on youtube this morning to find video links on the situation for a friend who is meeting with our representative to the state Senate, and could not help but notice the color of the comments.

While there are many thank yous and people expressing support, sorrow and outrage, there are quite a few hateful attacks on the Baha'is in response to the videos, many of them parroting the same charges the Iranian government has made -- that we are Zionists, subversive, and spies for Israel. It is amazing to me to see this sort of response since it seems to only throw the peaceful and embracing nature of the Faith into sharp contrast.

Our speaker at last night's meeting, a member of the Regional Baha'i Council for the Southwestern States, made an interesting point of the irrationality of the charges: how can someone be accused of spying on government agencies when they are denied even the lowest-level employment in those agencies, as indeed, Baha'is are.

I had not thought of it that way before, but a point I tried to make with one of the commentators was that the Baha'i Faith existed in Palestine before Israel existed as a state because the Iranian government itself, in conjunction with the Ottoman Empire, SENT the Baha'is there.

The Baha'is are the largest religious minority in Iran after the Sunni Muslims. We are not, however, either a sect of Islam or a Kurdish clan.

The Baha'i Faith is a religion related to Islam in the same way that Christianity is related to Judaism. That is the Prophet of the Faith was Muslim, but claimed an independent revelation from the same God that sent Muhammad, Jesus, Moses etc.

Before the revolution there were about 600,000 Baha'is in Iran, many of whom fled the country. Others - about 200 - were executed.

Our local community here in San Jose has a large Persian population of believers who were driven out of Iran begining in 1979.

The government continued to repress Baha'is and prevent them from practicing their religion by closing their places of worship. It banned them from government and military leadership posts, the social pension system, and public schools and universities, unless they concealed their faith.

The courts also denied Baha'is the right to inherit property and refused to recognize Baha'i marriages or divorces. According to the law, Baha'i blood is considered "mobah," meaning Baha'is may be killed with impunity. The government repeatedly pressured Baha'is to recant their religious beliefs in exchange for relief from mistreatment.

According to human rights groups, all seven members of the Baha'i national leadership body and a total of at least 40 Baha'is were imprisoned at year's end.

On December 28, authorities on Kish Island arrested and interrogated Faegheh Rafeie and eight of her relatives, including several minors, for discussing their Baha'i faith with a local shopkeeper. Authorities released some members of the group the following day but held others for two to three more days.

All religious minorities suffered varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in employment, education, and housing. In 2006 the UNSR for adequate housing visited the country and reported that rural land, particularly that belonging to minorities including Baha'is, was expropriated for government use, and owners were not fairly compensated. Inheritance laws favored Muslims over non-Muslims.

Source:

2008 Human Rights Report: Iran