If Iran Is Really Listening

          
          THE NEW YORK TIMES
          Editorial
          January 18. 1982
          If Iran Is Really Listening
          So they aren't deaf, after all. One of Iran's mul-
          lahs — Ayatollah Musavi Ardebeli — recently called
          a news conference to deny Western reports about the
          slaughter of adherents of the Bahai religion. It was
          not true, he said, that eight Bahal leaders were se-
          cretly executed on Dec. 27. And if “one or two Ba-
          hais” have been killed recently, the murders “were
          not carried out by official bodies.”
          Yet there is testimony from Bahais outside Iran
          — including names, dates, places — that at least ill
          members of the faith have been executed over the
          past two years. These wholesale killings are the re-
          venge of mean-minded zealots against a stigmatized
          religion that originated in Iran a century ago. The
          Bahais apparently cannot be forgiven their devotion
          to peace and toleranáe, their belief In opportunities
          for women and, not least, their prominence in the
          professions.
          The first victim reported shot on Dec. 27 was said
          to be Jinus Mahinoud, a physicist who headed Iran's
          Meteorology D partment. Her son, in Los Angeles,
          plausibly insists that his mother was kil!ed because
          her scientific eminence “stuck in the thIoat-of- the
          current rulers of Iran.”
          Ayatollah Musavi Ardebeli, the President of
          Iran's Supreme Court, could easily disprove the
          charges about a new wave of terror. Let him produce
          Mrs. Mahmoud and the other named victims. The
          impression spreads that in the new Iran, there is lit-
          tle tolerance and no mercy for either religious or
          political dissenters. It is an impression that the world
          Is eager to lose.
          BP000603