American husband., Jimmy.
“Our faith, from the beginning,
said things that would annoy the
(Iranian) authorities,” she began.
Baha'is do not believe n clergy,
which would appear to be
I anathema in a country whose
- political shots are called by the
Islamic clergy.
Women were accepted as equals
in the early writings of Baha'i
founder, Baha'u'llah. That state-
ment and others earned the founder
a lifetime in jail, according to a
history of the faith. Baha'i women
are not bound to wear the tradi-
tional veil that has again become
popular among Islamic women in
Iran.
Baha'js believe all world
religious are divine in origin. Jesus,
Buddha, Mohammed and
Baha'n'llah are all prophets. There
is no one, true prophet.
In addition, because the founder
Spent so much time in jail there,
Haifa, Israel, holds one of the ma-
jor shrines to the Baha'i faith.
Israel and Iran share a relationship
akin to that between water and oil
— they don't mix.
Earlier this month, 16 Baha'is —
six men and 10 women, including
three teenage girls — were ex-
ecuted by hanging despite a per-
sons! appeal for their lives from
President Reagan.
The Baha'i leader asked that the
U.S. government push for the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights to
intercede with Iran on behalf of the
Baha'is, and that immigration
As a minority, and because they
were different, Baha'is found
themselves blamed, for epidemics,
famines and other natural disasters
throughout Persian history.
The late Shah Mohammed Iteza.
Pahlavj refused to reopen Baha'i
schools that had been closed during
the reign of his father. In 1955, his
government announced the Baha'i
religion had been banned.
Historically, the Baha'i have Violent attacks on Baha'i years. ThehomeinTaq .ofB 'i
been objects of religious persecu- followers and landmarks including founder Baha'u”liah was destroyed
tion since the religion was founded, rape, looting, burning and murder and the land put up for sale. The
Waltham Baha'i Henry Lawrence followed. International outcry shrine of another Baha'i prophet,
likened the persecution waves as helped reinstate the Baha'i in Ira- Bab, was bulldozed over in 1979.
appearing in five and ten year man society. It is the increasing scale of the
cycles. ‘ •-• With --the coming of -the--latest persecutions that led Henry
Ayatollah's Islamic Republic, Lawrence to add a postscript to his
Baha'i were again barred from theory of cyclical persecutions of
schools and, universities in the Baha'i. -
September, 1981. For Mrs. For- “The fear is of genocide this
sythe's brother Soroush, it meant time.” -
the end of two years of medical After several minutes of careful
studies, she said, thumbing, Mrs. Forsythe added her
He was working in a factory own postscript, quoting the words
before his disappearance, she add- of Baha'u'llah: “Every one of us
ed. looks forward to the day when the
Shrines of the faith have been earth will truly be one country and
destroyed during the past two mankind its citizens.”
Baha'i'lèàder-d-é'mands halt to.
harassment, torture, killing
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The
leader of the Baha'i religion in the
United States recently told the
House Human Rights Caucus that
Washington should take the lead in
gaining worldwide condemnation of f
the persecution of Baha'is in Iran. ‘ .‘ , , . , -
The suffering of the Baha'i corn- - -* -
munity in Iran could be reduced if (
the public would “express its in-
dignation and -demand .the cessa- ‘
tion of terror against the innocent,”
said Dr. Fritz Kazemzadeh, “ ‘ % ‘ ‘
secretary of the National Spiritual
Assembly of flaha'js in th United
States. . .-
Otherwise, “the Baha'is will be US President Ronald Reagan
continue to b harassed, - h
maltreated and killed in a country UPI file P oto
where jail and the hangman's noose
have become common instru ments
of persuasion,” said Kazemzadeh.
Shiite Moslems, the current
rulers of Iran, believe that the
Baha'i faith is a heres ' — that
Islam, out of which Bahs'm partially
developed, is the “final” religion
and that Mohammed was the last
prophet to appear on earth.
The Moslem hatred of the Baha'i,
Kazemzadeh said, “is further fed
by Baha'i belief in the unity of
mankind, the equality or races, the
equality of sexes, universal peace,
universal education and the har-
mony of religion and science.”
Kazemzadeh told the Human
Rights Caucus that since last
September's congressional ap-
proval of a resolution condemning
Iran's persecution, 27 more Bàha'is
have been executed.
BP000538
rules be eased for Iranian Baha'i
refugees.
In the three years since the Ira-
nian revolution that brought the
Ayatollah Khomeini to power, more
than 150 Baha'is have been ex-
ecuted, thousands of Iranian
Baha'is have lost their jobs, and
thousands more Baha'i children
have been deprived, of formal
education, Kazemzadeh said.
Moffarah and James Forsythe look at photo of Baha'i S am
Haifa, Israel, i-ntheirhome, photobyArt li lman
Earlier this month, l6Baha is — six men and
10 women, including three teenage girls —
were executed by hanging despite a
personal app ealforthejr lives from -
Pres. Ronald Reagan -
