4 ,
THE ELONDONJ SUNDAY flMES. 20 JANUARY1985
WORLD
IRAN, whose systematic use of torture and
executions without fair trial is under
investigation by the United Nations, has
become the first country in the world to
denounce the 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. Its ambassador to the
UN, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, has told the
IJN in New York that since the
declaration, for which Iran voted and
which has the force of international
customary law, derives from “the Judaeo-
Christian tradition”, Iran ‘would not
therefore hesitate to vio'ate its provisions”.
Iran justifies its defiance of international
law by claiming that it abides instead by
“the divine law” of its 1979 Islamic
constitution. It is refusing to cooperate
s ith the UN's special investigator, who is
due to make a preliminary report next
month but has not been able to visit the
cou n try.
Torture to obtain information or
confessions is prohibited under Iran's
constitution, but Iran claims that “corporal
punishn en and the death penalty” are not
torture “ifcarried out on the basis ofislani,
in accordance with a sentence by an
Islamic court”. However, there is extensive
documentary evidence that torture is being
used to extract confessions, and without
judicial sanction, and that it is becoming
more brutal and more widespread. One
group, the 300.000 Iranian members of the
Ba.'ia'i faith, has been denied recognition
under the constitution and is being
persecuted as an entire community.
The Baha'i religion, which originated in
Iran in the 19th century, is considered
hcrctical by Muslims because it holds that'
alt re!icio is come from God and must be
r:izcctcd as part ofa process of progressive
rcvc!aticn, In revering Baha'ullah, their
r ' 'ri prophet, they cha!lcnge the Islamic
t' !ief th it Muhammad is the last of the
w iets. P.aha'is have been consistently
by Rosemary Righter
Diplomatic Correspondent
discriminated against in Iran, but Khomei-
ni's regime is the first to have embarked on
their wholesale destruction,
The top Baha'i leadership, the nine-
member elected national assembly, had to
be reconstituted three times following
kidnappings or arrests before being forced
to disband last year. Of the 27 who have
served since 1979, 25 are dead.
Like the Jews in Hitler's Germany,
Baha'is have been dismissed from their
jobs, denied pensions and in some cases
been forced to repay all salary received.
They have had their property and business
assets confiscated, and have been denied
education and the right to worship. Since
1983, they have been liable to the death
penalty if they “give information to others”
of the attacks against them, they have been
prohibited to hold the assemblies that
govern their affairs, and been executed for
teaching their children the faith. Their
cemeteries have been desecrated .Now the
• campaign to break the Baha'i leadership,
over 700 of whom are in prison and 193 of
whom have been killed, is entering a new
phase.
All prisoners are to be forced to sign a
statement conceding that the Baha'is are “a
Zionist espionaee group” and that pos-
session of any Baha'i literature or religious
symbol warrants the death penalty for
“warring against God”. The Iranian
government, which has repeatedly asserted
that no Baha'is have been persecuted for
their faith, is resorting to this approach
after six months of effort to obtain by
torture “admissions” of Baha'i involve-
ment with Israeli intelligence. Once it
obtains such statements, foreign human-
rights experts believe, it will feel free to
begin a “final solution” diminating the
Baha'is.
Iran justifies its denial of recognition for
the Baha'is by arguing that they are •‘a
political sect”. In fact, Baha'is are expressly
forbidden by their religion to take part in
politics and enjoined to obey the ruling
civil power.
The allegation that Baba'is are “Zionist
agents” derives from the historical accident
that their ‘ounder, Baha'i'llah, was exiled
to Acre in the 19th century, and the world
headquarters of the 3m-strong worldwide
religion is there on Mount Carniel, in what
is now Israel.
A temporary lull in the number of
executions of Baha'is came in 1983,
following an internationai outcry over the
hanging of 10 women and teenage girls for
teaching Baha'i children who had been
expelled from school. But since last June,
the scale and ferocity of tortures of Bahais
has increased. Last month six senior
leaders were executed, and the death of
another 19 is thought to be irmsminent,
Others have died under torture aimed at
extracting videotaped confessions for use
on Iranian television.
Outside the jails Baha'is are subjected to
exceptional measures. One man was taken
last June from a Tehran hospital while he
was recovering from surger on the va to
prison, the guards tore open his sutures.
Others have been surrounced by mobs and
burned to death, or incinerated in their
homes. Families of those executed have
been driven from their homes.
Some 40.000 Baha'is have managed to
flee Iran. Those who remain live under a
suspended seclence of death. Khomeini
has not rescinded his edict that, “if
somebody is a heretic and Will not recant,
the shedding of his blood is not a crime”.
BP000569
fran savages Baha!is and
denounces UN charter
