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. . Iran executing Baha' is-:'.
who don't recant faith D R11MORE,Mo
By The Associated Press h0 iJ nfn dure? BALTIMORE METROPOLITAN' AREA
After being questioned and threat- . were slaughtered, six Baha'i men,
ened for hours, assured they could ranging in age from 23, to 60, were -‘UL 30 :s
save their lives and gain national re- hanged in the same city, and on June
spect if they would renounce their 24, another young man. In these
“misguided” faith, the 10 unyielding cases, as in the steady toll of others,
women were hanged. Baha'i officials said, the victims, are
They included two teenage girls, .offered release if they recant their
, five others in their 20s and three old- faith. ‘ . . .. . . .‘
i ” er women wives, mothers, daugh- “They're, told they can be freed,
ters, sisters — members of one of the have their homes back and their
world's most tolerant, peace-loving . jobs,” said Robert Blum of the Baha'i
‘ religions, the Baha'i faith. . temple and headquarters in Wilmette;
Their executions in the city of fli. “That's the offer' — your life ver-
‘ Shiraz in southern Iran June 18, as re- sus your faith. Many are, offered
counted by American Baha' leaders, more than they had before.”. ‘
was only one episode in. a grisly, But few have given in, he added.
three-year succession of deaths and The accumulating deaths, persecu-
abuse against Iran's largest religious tion and pressure are being compared.
minority. ‘ ‘ to the early Nazi persecution of the
“The objective is the elimination Jews But in that case, Jews were
of the Baha'i community,” says Firuz classified racially and had no chance:
Kazemsadeh, a Yale University ex- to recant to save themselves.
pert on the Middl East and chief ex- Mr. Kazemsadeh likens the' situa-
ecutive of the Bahá'i national assern-' tion of Iran's Báha'is to that of the
bly in the Un tedStates. early ChristiaEs under. the Roman'
It's a systematic, grinding process,. ‘Empire, when many of them' died
he says of arrests, confiscations of rather than renounce their faith in or-:
property and assets, dismissals from .der to live. , . . .. ‘ ‘
jobs, expulsion of children from ‘“It's a matter of transcendence, of
school and recurrent executions de- values greater than life itself,” he,
signed to mtimidate and spread fear said
The technique so far has not in- . ‘In the last three ,years under' the
volved”mass murder,” he said in a Iranian ‘regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah,
telephoneinterv ew, but when family Khomeini, there have been 142 hang-
. members and friends keep being ings, firing-squad executions or assas-,
killed rather than forsake their faith, sinations recorded of Baha'is.'
BP0002
