… And barbarity in Iran

          
          . And barb
          • OFFENSIVE AS Iran's behavior at the
          £ “ United Nations may' be, and as danger-
          • oua'tO peace and innocent lives as its spoI1 or-,
          shii of international terrorism is, perhaps
          the ltimate measure ‘of the Khomeini re-
          gix , in Teheran is. the way it is treating its•
          owp citizen minorities.' According to Amnes-
          ty International, whose credentials are .as
          goods as any, at least' 144 members of the
          a1i i faith in Iran have been executed or.
          ass sinated . by the government or its
          agents. Their principal “crime”? Adherence
          to th'eir faith, and their refusal to convert to
          Islam. ‘ , ‘‘ . ‘
          Lá' t June, 16 Bahai women were hanged
          aftdr. they refus d Tö' ecant and convert.
          Another .130 were dis 1ossessed of their prop-
          erty, confined for three ‘days without food or
          watel ', then released to the fury of a mob.
          ‘They escaped death by hiding in a forest out-
          sid :their village. Bahai leaders have been
          exee'. ted ‘on trumped-up spying charges.
          ‘Ev n children have been among those cxc-
          cutea' for what is officially condemned as
          heresy in Iran.
          S - ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ •
          1ND WHY ARE the Bahai —in contrast
          with other re gions and ‘sects, which.
          may be discriminated against but are offi-
          ciall tolerated — so detestable. in the sight of
          the fanatical mullahs who rule in Teheran?
          Pre umably because their faith, an eclectic
          one .: . tounded in Iran some 140 years ago,
          prè ches the kind of tolerance that'is so at
          odds with the Khomeini brand of Islam:
          eqO älity of all races and religions, the equali-
          ty f men and women, intellectual freedom,
          universal education and — heresy of heresies,
          —‘w ld peace. Obviously such a doctrine; if
          widely followed in Iran, would undercut the
          regime's efforts to keep the populace in a
          constant state of fury and hate for ‘all ‘that is
          ali to the official line.
          r eas for an' end to persecution of the 300,-
          ooo: ranian Bahai have been made to Kh -'
          me ii by world leaders, including President
          ‘Reagan, and by ‘a number of international
          organizations, including the UN Commission'
          on Human Rights in Geneva — but not, nota-
          bly the U.N. General Assembly in N w York.'
          Efforts to'bring the issue to the Assembly
          floor for debate have failed even to turn up a
          single government willing to Offend Iran by
          sponsoring such a move.
          The Bahai are not the only ones to suffer in
          Iran, of course. Amnesty International has
          received reports of more than 5,000 execu-.
          tions, which it regards an “absolute mini-
          mum.” But the barbarous treatment the
          ,Bahai have received Is so monstrous that it
          demands a special response from civilized
          nations, whose only recourse is to foctis.
          greater attention on what amounts to no less
          th,an genocide. . .
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