Reagan to Iran: Stop persecuting Bahais

          
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          • LOS ANGELES, CA.
          HERALD EXAMINER
          • D. 320,000 — S. 335,000
          LOS ANGELES METROPOLITAN AREA
          • Y flAY22I9E3
          Reagan, to Iran: Stop persecuting Báhais
          President will urge Khomeini to them out as adherents of a heretic Islamic sect of the Bahai faith to death, Firuz Kazemzadeh a
          Bahais have generally served as businessmen Bahai of Iranian descent who is chairman of th
          stay the executions of 22 members teachers middle-level government officials and Committee on Middle Eastern Studies at Yale, said in
          army officers in Iran a telephone interview that wo men and a woman
          By Bernard Weinraub The Bahais have no clergy and uphold the divine had already been executed and that 19 now face”
          New York Times News Service origin of all major religions, including Islam The death in Iranian prisons
          religion shuns violence, abstains from partisan Kazemzadeh said the presidential statement ,was.
          WASHINGTON — President Reagan vill issue a politics and espouses the eradication of prejudices being made to coincide with the founding of th '
          statement tonight sa ing the United States is of race creed class nationality and sex Bahai faith on May 23 1844 On that date a merchant
          •‘alarmèd and dismayed” at the persecution of The Bahais have been th scapegoats of Persian in the Persian City of Shiraz, Ali Muhammad, told a
          Bahais in Iran and urging the Iranian government to and then Iranian society T for generations an Moslem clergyman that he was divinely inspired to
          halt the planned execution of a group of prominent estimated 20 000 Bahais have been killed in Iran in create the new faith The merchant was later known.
          Bahais, White House officials said yesterday. the last 100 years, according to Bahai officials The as the Bab, or gate, signifying the .gate betweén1m n
          I strongly urge other woild leaders to join me in faith claims adherents in 173 countries and God
          an appeal to the Ayatollah Khomeini and the rest of Bahai officials in the UAitecl States said Reagan s Rea an in his statement said America and th
          Iran's leadership not to implement the sentences statement would be the first.'White House expression. world are increasin 1 alarmed and disma ed at t
          that have been pronounced •on these innocent of concern about the persecution of the Bahais since.. ersecution and severe ré ression of the Bahais
          people said the presidential statement which was the Iranian revolution although Carter administra ? an p
          made available yesterday tion officials also criticized ran s treatment of the r
          White House officials said the apparently in BaIi'ais He said the Bahais sentenced to death ‘are not
          creased persecution of the Bahai minority in Iran The statement was prompted according to guilty of any political offense or crime ‘He added.
          was a serious issue With us an important issue administration officials, b çt several congressional They have not plotted to overthrow the regime, and
          now' At least 150 Bahai men and women have been esolutioris about the Bahais,, growing State Depart they are not responsible for the deaths of anyone
          hanged or shot by Khomeini s government since it ment concern about the treatment of the minority, They only wish to live according to the dictates of
          came to power in 1979 and the highly vocal and o gamzed Bahais m the their own conscience
          — Although the Bahai population in Iran is rela United States, who number 100,000 Bahai officials said that 15 000 to 20,000 Bahais
          tively small — thereãi e 300,000 to 4O0 000 Bah is in Although Reagan m his planned=statement, said fled Iran in the last few years and that about 8,000 of'
          the country — the Khomeini government has singled the Iranian government had entenced 22 members them had settled in the United States -
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