Iran’s Baha’is: Some Call It Genocide

          
          THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUAI Y 27, 1983
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          Iran's Baha'is: Some Call It Genocide
          By H. W. APPLE Jr
          LONDON — For centuries the city of Shiraz, in
          southwestern Iran, has been a center of Persian
          poetry and intellectual life. The very word “Per.
          sian” comes from Pars, the name of the region.
          centering on Shiraz. It is also the birthplace of the
          Bab, a 19th-century prophet whose teachings led
          to the creation of the Baha'i faith.
          Two weeks ago in that city, the latest chapter in
          a long history of the Baha'l persecution unfolded
          before an Islamic tribunal. Of 21 members of the
          sect on trial for spying and alleged links with Is-
          rael, 20 were condemned to death, according to a
          Baha'I spokesman in London. The remaining de-
          fendant was pardoned.
          The Baha'is have been the scapegoats of Per-
          sian and then Iranian society for generations.
          Donald M. Barrett, the secretary-general of the•
          Baha'i World Center in Haifa, Israel, says 20,000
          Baha'is have been killed in Iran during the last 100
          years. Since the advent of the Khomeini regime in
          1979 at least 135 Baha'is, many of them spiritual
          leaders,bave been executed.
          The adherents of this relatively little-known
          religion seem unlikely villains. They uphold the
          divine origin of all major religions, including
          Islam. They shun violence, abstain from partisan
          politics and advocate unexceptionable principles
          such as the “development of good character” and
          the “eradication of prejudices of race, creed,
          class, nationality and sex,” to quote from a recent
          pamphlet. Claiming adherents in 173 countries,
          the Baha'i faith published literature in some 600
          languages and dialects. It maintains vast domed
          houses of worship In Wilmette, Ill.; Frankfurt-
          am-Main, West Germany; Kampala, Uganda;
          Sydney, Australia and Panama City, Panama.
          Others are being built In India and Samoa.
          In Iran, however, members of the sect have al-
          ways been considered heretics by the ShI'ite Mus-
          lim majority, while their relative prosperity has
          attracted the hostility of those less well-off. There
          are between 300,000 and 400,000 Baha'is In Iran,
          according to officials of the faIth. Mr. Barrett esti-
          mated that 10,000 have left the country since the.
          revolution. For the last six months, he added,
          none have been able to leave. Applications for exit
          visas must now specify the applicant's religion,
          and Baha'is are being turned down.
          Although Savak, the secret police of the late
          Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Is believed to
          have persecuted some members of the sect, and
          despite the Shah's refusal to reopen Baha'l
          schools closed by his father in 1934, the Baha'ls
          served the old regime under their doctrine of
          obedience to the temporal authorities of the coun-
          try of residence. Indeed, the Shah was so certain
          of their loyalty, he used Bahai's to maintain army
          communications. That led the Khomeini regime
          — especially the mullahs, who resent the Baha'i
          challenge to their authority— to accuse the sect of
          collaboratIng with a corrupt government.
          “That Is absolutely false,” Mr. Barrett said...
          “Baha'Is are forbidden from participating in par-
          tisan politics. Baha'is were the only group who, at
          great risk, refused to join the Shah's political
          party. We were nonpolitical and continue to be
          nonpolitical.”
          Nonetheless, officials in Teheran see the sect as
          a classic example of the impurity of the Shah's
          Iran. They further believe that Baha'is are in
          league with an Iranian enemy, Israel, citing as
          evidence receipts from contibutions made by Ira-
          nian Baha'is to shrines at Haifa and at Acco in Is-
          rael. In fact, Israel is the Baha'i holy land.
          Religious differences heighten Iran's contempt
          for the sect. Because Baha'is do not make distinc-
          tions between men and women, .they do not segre-
          gate the sexes at religious services, as demanded.
          by Iran's Islamic fundamentalists. Baha'i women
          wear no veils, having cast them aside In the last
          century. Baha'is are accused of immorality be-
          cause their marriage rites are not recognized in
          Iran and no civil marriage exists. A member of
          the sect commented, “We can betray our faith.
          and marry according to Moslem precepts, or we
          can remain true to our beliefs and find ourselves
          accused of adultery, prostitution and other sins.”
          Meanwhile, Baha'is are being denied recogni-
          tion under the Islamic constitution, which in
          theory protects Iran's Jewish, Christian and Zo-
          roastrian minorities. This has permitted what the
          Baha'i office at the United Nations calls a “cam-
          paign of religious persecution so malevolent,. so
          intense, so sustained and so far-reaching that It
          presages the eradication of the Baha'i community
          as a religious minorIty in Iran.”
          It appears now that about three years ago the
          Khomeini Government initiated a program to
          break the sect's organizational back. The faith
          has no priests or mullahs and hence no ecclesias-
          tic hierarchy; it is run by councils or assemblies
          elected by secret ballot each year. On Aug. 21,
          1980, all nine members of the National Spiritual
          Assembly in Teheran were arrested. Nothing has
          been heard of them. Since then, Mr. Barrett said,
          members of local spiritual assemblies in every
          locality have been picked up. Exact numbers are
          not known, but it seems that thousands have been
          jailed or abducted.
          Businesses have been confiscated, trade U-
          censes revoked; retired government employees
          have lost pensions. Houses, crops and animals
          have been destroyed; shrines and cemeteries
          demolished; children have been denied places in
          schools. The house of the Bab in Shiraz — which
          means as much to Baha'is as the Church of the
          Nativity means to Christians, the Wailing Wall In
          Jerusalem means to Jews and the Kaaba shrine in
          Mecca means to Muslims — was bulldozed, Mr.
          Barrett said. The site is now a parking lot..
          Condemnations by the European Community, . ..:
          the United States and the United Nations have 1983
          “slowed the process of total obliteration of the
          Baha'I faith in Iran,” according to Mr. Barrett. The New York
          But other Baha'l leaders and several independent Times Company
          observers use the word “genocide” to describe - Renrinted with
          whattheyfear Is happening. . .. . •• . ..
          Permission
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