. 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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