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. . .. . •• . ..
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