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The Persecution of Iran’s Baha’is: A Congressional Hearing (World Order – Spring 1982)

          
          BP000276
          
        
          
          Iforlil. Order
          A BAHA'I MAGAZINE • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 3 • PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
          Editorial Board:
          FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
          BETTY J. FISHER
          HOWARD GAREY
          GLENFORO E. MITCHELL
          •
          Consultant in Poetry:
          WILLIAM STAFFORD
          WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by
          the National Spiritual Assembly of the
          Bahá Is of the United States, 415 Linden
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          Copyright © 1982, National Spiritual As-
          sembly of the Bahá'Is of the United States,
          All Rights Reserved, Printed in the U.S.A.
          ISSN 0043-8804
          INSIDE THIS ISSUE
          
          I The Threat of Genocide
          Editorial
          
          3 About This Issue
          6 Opening Statement
          by Congressman Don Bonker
          .
          8 A Chronology of Concern
          statement of
          Congressman Edward J. Derwiaski
          9 Expressing the Sense of Congress
          statement of
          Congressman For:ney H. Stark, Jr.
          .
          14 Three Years of Horrors
          statement of Judge James F. Nelson
          .
          19 The Roots of the Hatred
          statement of Professor Firuz Kazemzadeh
          26 An Eyewitness Account
          statement of Ramna Mahrnoudi Nouranj
          .
          31 Reactions of American Bahá'Is
          statement of Glen ford E. Mitchell
          35 The Assault Upon Iran's Bah 'Is
          statement of the National Spiritual Assembly
          of the Bahd'Is of the United States
          ,
          46 Appealing to the World's Conscience
          book review by Firuz Kazemzadeh
          48 Art Credits
          .
          .
          - I-
          
        
          
          THE THREAT OF GENOCIDE
          The Threat of Genocide
          EDITORIAL
          T HE MURDERS continue. Men and women are arrested and put on
          trial on trumped-up charges, or disappear without leaving a trace.
          Month after month, open and secret executions take place. The bodies
          of the victims, unceremoniouslY dumped in morgues and cemeteries,
          often bear marks of torture. Children are ridiculed, insulted, and os-
          tracized in schools. Some have been kidnapped and placed with Muslim
          families to be raised as Muslims. Houses are set on fire; property is
          looted; the old and the sick are deprived of care; the young and vigorous
          are denied work. Thousands wander homeless, strangers in their native
          land.
          Through the green forests of Mazandaran, on the barren shores of the
          sea of Uman, by the snow-capped Alburz, in the shadeless heat of the
          Lut, in cities and towns, villages, and hamlets, is heard the blood-curdling
          cry: Recant! Recant!
          Recant and 1iv .
          Recant and save yourself from torture and rape.
          Recant and join those who have killed your family, your friends.
          In the ancient and long-suffering land of Iran no other voices can be
          heard. But what of the world? Will it again remain silent in the face
          of such inhumanity? Will it not be stirred by the threat of genocide?
          - -- —
          
        
          
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          3
          About This Issue
          ON MAY 25, 1982, the Subcommittee on Human
          Rights and International Organizations of the For-
          eign Affairs Committee of the United States House of
          Representatives heard the testimony of six witnesses
          concerning the persecution of the Bahá'Is in Iran.
          The hearing indicated the growing awareness of the
          American people and its elected representatives of
          the tragic events that have already cost well over a
          hundred lives, made thousands homeless, and caused
          untold suffering to a peaceful religious community
          of some 400,000 members.
          The significance of the testimony and of the forum
          in which it was presented have prompted us to pub-
          lish the entire prepared testimony in the form in
          which it was submitted to the Subcommittee (with-
          out following the style of transliteration of Persian
          and Arabic words ordinarily used by World Order). j
          The abbreviated oral statements, as well as the ex-
          change of questions and answers that occurred in the
          session and was recorded stenographically, are not yet
          available but will be published by the Congress be-
          fore the end of the year. Because of the extraordinary
          nature of the material published in this issue, we
          have dispensed with our usual practice of including
          an Interchange.
          THE EDITORS
          
        
          
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          6 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS Sinc
          SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND must C
          INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS bring 2
          public
          OPENING STATEMENT do mo
          HONORABLE DON BUNKER ti
          that B
          “Religious Persecution as a Violation of Human Rights” be
          Part 111—The Baha'is Baha'is
          May25, 1982
          W E HAVE STARTED a series of hearings on Religious Persecution as a
          Violation of Human Rights. The first two hearings have been gen-
          eral in nature, laying the framework as to the scope of the problem, how
          widespread it is, and what constitutes religious persecution.
          Today we start looking at specific examples of religious persecutions around
          the world. The first case to be considered is that of the Baha'is in Iran.
          The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recognizes and
          protects the Jewish, Christian, and Zorastrian minorities in that country, never-
          theless denies recognition to Iran's largest religious minority, the Baha'is. As
          a result, Iran's 300,000 Baha'is are deprived of any form of protection under
          the law.
          From the time of its birth in 1844 and at no stage in its history has the
          Baha'i faith been granted recognition as an independent religion by the Iranian
          Government or under the Iranian Constitution. The Baha'is have been con-
          sidered heretics within Islam since their religion was founded 138 years ago
          in Iran.
          Since the inception of the Baha'i faith, they have lived in a climate of
          constant repression characterized by frequent outbreaks of violence and blood-
          shed. In the early days, over 20,000 Baha'is were killed. Under subsequent
          regimes including the former Pahlavi's (Shah), the religious persecution of
          the Baha'is continued.
          Now once again in post-revolutionary Iran, differences in religious ideology
          are being used by fanatical elements to justify violent attacks on the Baha'i
          community. In March of 1980, two Baha'is were executed for teaching the
          Baha'i faith. Fourteen more were executed in June of 1980 for practicing their
          religion. In August of the same year, 14 members of the Baha'i administrative
          body disappeared. Last December 8, members of the Baha'i national assembly
          were executed and in January, six members of the local governing body of
          Tehran were executed. Baha'i shrines and cemeteries have been desecrated,
          administrative centers and savings confiscated. A systematic effort appears
          under way to eliminate the Baha'i religion from Iran.
          The Baha'is are gentle and peace-loving. In accordance with the tenets
          of their faith, they uphold the divine origin of all the major world religions,
          rather than being narrow in scope.
          
        
          
          OPENING STATEMENT
          Since the United States has no leverage with the Iranian government, we
          must do all we can through other countries that have influence in Iran to
          bring an end to the persecution of the Baha'is. Through private channels and
          public exposure we must continue to pressure the Reagan Administration to
          do more and the Iranian government to put a stop to this genocide.
          In the last two years the Subcommittee has made every effort to make sure
          that Baha'is are granted asylum in the United States. Every effort must also
          be made to call to the attention of world public opinion the plight of the
          Baha'is. This hearing will promote that process.
          7
          4.
          .., .,,.
          I.
          
        
          
          S WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          A Chronology of Concern
          STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. DERWIN-
          SKI BEFORE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN
          RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZA-
          TIONS AT HEARING ON MAY 25, 1982, ON
          RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION AS A VIOLATION
          OF HUMAN RIGHTS—THE BAHA'IS
          M R. CHAIRMAN, I am pleased that you
          are holding hearings and concentrating
          on the issue of the Baba'is. I believe that this
          ongoing tragedy which the Baha'i community
          is suffering in Iran is a story that has not
          been told vigorously and often enough and
          is, in fact, one of the great tragedies of our
          times.
          The Baha'i community called my attention
          to their fears in Iran shortly after the radical
          regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini took con-
          trol in that country. At this point, I would
          like to have inserted in the record the letter
          I received on February 15, 1979, from Glen-
          ford F. Mitchell, Secretary of the National
          Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the
          United States.
          I have been concerned with the plight of
          Iranian members of the Baha'i faith for some
          time. On June 26, 1981, I appealed to Kurt
          Waldheim, then Secretary General of the
          United Nations, for his help in alleviating
          their suffering. May I insert a copy of that
          letter in the record at this point. The U.N.
          Subcommission for Prevention of Discrimina-
          tion and Protection of Minorities voted iS
          to 0 in condemnation of the Iranian persecu-
          tioh of the Baha'is.
          On July 24, 1981, 1 addressed the House,
          denouncing the cruelty and excesses of the
          Iranian regime and calling for particülár at-
          tention to the continued persecution of the
          Baha'is. On September 15, 1981, I placed in
          the Congressional Record a column by Pro-
          fessor Firuz Kazemzadeh entitled “For
          Baha'is in Iran, a Threat of Extinction.” I
          ask that these items be included in the
          record at this point. I also asked you as
          Chairman of the Subcommittee on Human
          Rights and International Organizations to
          hold hearings on the situation of the Iranian
          Baha'is, and I am very pleased this is now
          being done.
          There are relatively few Baha'is in the
          United States. The attention of the media is
          now riveted on the situation in the Falkland
          Islands and other world trouble spots, and
          the internal tragedy the Baha'is and other
          victims of the Ayatollah's regime face is all
          but forgotten. Again, Mr. Chairman, I com-
          mend you for holding these hearings and
          helping to present this story on behalf of a
          truly innocent and suffering people, the
          Baha'is.
          I
          
        
          
          9
          Expressing the Sense of Congress
          TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE FORTNEY
          H. STARK, JR., BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE
          ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL
          ORGANIZATIONS, MAY 25, 1982
          MR. CHAIRMAN, Thank you for giving
          me the opportunity to testify before
          your subcommittee today, to express my
          concern about the religious persecution of
          the 300,000 Iranian Baha'is by the Khomeini
          regime. I know that many of our colleagues
          in Congress also believe that we must con-
          demn and oppose the harsh repression and
          possible genocide of the Baha'is in Iran. It
          is quite sad and ironic that a people who for
          over one hundred years have striven to bring
          about the unity of mankind, world peace, and
          world order, should be the target of flagrant
          violations of human rights.
          I first learned about the plight of the
          Baha'is in Iran through constituents of mine,
          who are either themselves members of the
          Baha'i Community or who are friends of
          members. The shocking and disturbing let-
          ters and newsclippings which I received
          from people in the 9th District of California,
          prompted me to investigate this matter fur-
          ther, and then to speak out against the geno-
          cidal actions of the Khomeini regime. I found
          that many of our colleagues were also very
          concerned about the persecution of the
          Baha'is in Iran, evidenced by the number of
          speeches in the Congressional Record about
          the Baha'is.
          On March 9, 1982, 1 introduced a con-
          current resolution, which expresses the sense
          of Congress that the President and other of-
          ficial representatives of the United States
          should at every opportunity before interna-
          tional forums reiterate and emphasize the
          extent to which we deplore and condemn
          the religious persecution of people of the
          Baha'i faith by the Government of Iran.
          There are presently 7 cosponsors to my reso-
          lution, and at least half a dozen other mem-
          bets have expressed an interest in signing it.
          I hope that the Subcommittee will consider
          my resolution in the very near future.
          The same day on which I introduced the
          concurrçr t resplution, I also introduced a bill
          to prohibit imports from Iran until it ceases
          the persecution of the Baha'is. I feel that
          if the message in the Resolution is not heeded,
          we must move forward with more con-
          crete actions, such as an embargo. Although
          United States imports from Iran have been
          reduced drastically, totaling only $63.8 mil-
          lion for all of 1981, $3.4 million for January
          1982, $2.3 million for February 1982, and
          $3.8 million for March 1982, imposing an
          embargo on even a small quantity of im-
          ports would certainly be a clear, tough signal
          to the Iranian Government. My bill has been
          referred to the Trade Subcommittee.
          I WOULD LIKE to share with the Subcommit-
          tee, some excerpts •from A Cry from the
          Heart, by an eminent Western Baha'i, Wil-
          liam Sears. This book is an impassioned ac-
          count of the horrors perpetrated against the
          Iranian Baha'is, a refutation of the false and
          contradictory charges levelled against them,
          and an exposé of the genocidal purpose of
          the present outbreak. The following excerpt
          describes the atrocities taking place against
          the Baha'is in Iran:
          The atrocities taking place against
          Bahá'Is today throughout Iran are no long-
          er matters of suspicion or opinion. They
          are matters of fact. The proof can be found
          in the records of libraries, newsrooms,
          United Nations Agencies, human rights
          organizations, telex and cable files in every
          part of the world.
          The spotlight of world publicity has
          now been turned directly upon Iran. It is
          no longer a secret that the killings, burn-
          ings, lootings, and torture of Bahá'Is are
          still continuing, even as these pages are
          being written. It is no longer possible for
          - ..
          
        
          
          JO /VORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          the persecutors to suppress or minimize
          the enormity of their crimes, or to hide
          anonymously behind the fiction of ‘un-
          controllable mobs.”
          Those days are over!
          Confiscation of property, of bank ac-
          counts, burning and looting of homes, of-
          licially sanctioned executions of innocent
          victims—all these things take place every-
          where, in the streets, in the market-place,
          and in the homes.
          The Bahá'Is are harassed, beaten, abused,
          killed. Sometimes husband and wife to-
          gether. Or an entire family. Or a group of
          close friends, or neighbours, or business
          associates. Chosen at random. At the whim
          of rhe killers.
          Stabbed, stoned, hanged, burned alive,
          hacked to pieces with knives, stood before
          firing-squads.
          Men, women, children. No one is spared.
          Their crime?
          They are Bahá'Is.
          These atracks have been going on for
          nearly one hundred and fifty years.
          The first onslaught of the current per-
          secutions began in 1978. It is now i
          its fourth year. The severity and spread of
          the outrages increase each day and be-
          come ever more sinister. There is no end
          in sight, and no sign of a let-up.
          What is most alarming and threatening
          about the present avalanche is not its vio-
          lence; that has always occurred. It is the
          devilish ingenuity of the assault designed
          to eliminate an entire community of near-
          ly half a million souls. The terror has now
          spread into every level of Bahá'I life, to
          city dweller, villager and farmer.
          At first the Bahá'I business houses, the
          repository of the savings of rich and poor
          Bahá'is alike, were confiscated, with no
          recompense. Then the great Bahá'f hospital
          in Teheran, built, operated and fully sup-
          ported by Bahá'is, where patients of all
          religions and backgrounds were treated
          with the same loving care, was taken over.
          Next, Bahá'I holy places throughout the
          country were occupied and put to whatever
          use, often personal, the revolutionary au-
          thorities, equally often the man with a
          gun, might decide. The meeting-places of
          the local communities were next to be
          taken. Then, having deprived this helpless
          community, which has no rights in law, of
          its funds, hospital, holy places and religious
          properties, attention was turned to the
          leaders of the community. All nine mem-
          bers of the National Spiritual Assembly
          were kidnapped . . . and have not been
          heard of, except by rumour, to this day.
          Outstanding Bahá'is in the provincial com-
          munities were next and many of those
          have been executed. The obvious aim is
          to get rid of the capable, trusted, elected
          leaders before launching the attack on the
          rank and file.
          The Bahá'i community they are trying to
          destroy is the largest religious minority in
          Iran. Jr has more nicmbers than the Chris-
          tian, Jewish and Zoroastrian communities
          combined. In spire of this, the Bahá'I Faith
          is not recognized and Bahá'Is are deprived
          of their basic human rights. There is no
          one and no place in the entire country
          they can approach for protection. They
          cannot appeal to the clergy, to the courts,
          or to the authorities. The clergy and their
          religious courts arc the authorities.
          They are engaged in a process which
          the entire civilized world has always been
          against.
          It is called: Genocide.'
          The alleged reasons for the genocide are
          listed below in the major accusations current-
          ly made against the Baha'is in Iran. The ab-
          surdity of these accusations is explained in a
          later section of the book—J feel, however,
          that the absurdity of these accusations will
          be apparent to all who have been following
          the persecution of the Bahais, without going
          into the well-documented refutation.
          A ccusations
          1. The Bahá'I Faith, far from being a
          religion, is a subversive and heretical
          sect which plans to establish its own
          regime in Iran.
          2. The Bahá'I Faith is a political party
          
        
          
          which supported the regime of Mu- . 9.
          hammad Reza Shah, and received fa-
          yours from him.
          3. The Bahá'Is are agents of foreign 10.
          powers, such as the United States and
          Russia, and of British imperialism.
          4. The Bahá'Is are “spies” for Israel, and
          secretly collaborate with internation-
          al Zionism. They contribute financially
          to the support of Israel which aids that
          country against its Arab and Muslim
          neighbours.
          I1 5. The Bahá'Is have their World Centre
          in Israel, and therefore must be hostile
          to Iran and to the current Islamic
          Revolution.
          6. The Bahá'Is travel frequently to and
          from Israel, carrying and receiving in-
          formation against Iran and other Arab
          nations.
          7. The Bahá'Is are against Islam and
          Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam,
          and insult His holy Book, the Koran.
          8. There have been Bahá'Is in high places
          in the political life of Iran, although
          they claim they do not become in-
          volved in politics. A Bahá'I was once
          Prime Minister. Others served in lesser
          ministerial capacities.
          EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF CONGRESS 11
          II. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
          I would like to commend the Subcommit-
          tee for holding this hearing to focus attention
          on the plight of the Baha'is in Iran. I hope
          that the Subcommittee will continue its work
          in this area, and favorably consider my reso-
          lution, H. Con. Res. 283.
          97TH CONGRESS
          2D SESSION
          H. CON. RES. 283
          Expressing the sense of Congress that the Presi-
          dent and other official representatives of the
          United States should at every opportunity be-
          fore international forums reiterate and empha-
          size the extent to which we deplore and con-
          demn the religious persecution of peoples of
          the Bahai faith by the Government of Iran.
          IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
          MARCH 9, 1982
          Mr. STARK submitted the following concurrent
          The Bahá'Is of Iran are quite different
          from those in other lands. In Iran
          they are politically oriented.
          One of the heads of the dreaded secret
          police, Savak, and others of its high-
          ranking officers, have been members
          of the Bahá'I Faith.
          
        
          
          12 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          resolution; which was referred to the
          Committee on Foreign Affairs
          CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
          Expressing the sense of Congress that the President
          and other official representatives of the United
          States should at every opportunity before inter-
          national forums reiterate and emphasize the
          extent to which we deplore and condemn the ..
          religious persecution of peoples of the Baha'i
          faith by the Government of Iran.
          Whereas the Government of Iran has persecuted
          peoples of the Baha'i faith, has killed more than
          one hundred individuals of the Baha'i faith
          since 1978, has jailed Baha'is unjustly, has con-
          fiscated and shut down Baha'i holy places and
          other community property, has banned Bahai
          meetings, has dismissed Baha'is from public and
          private employment, has destroyed Baha'i homes
          and businesses, and has harassed or assaulted
          Baha'is in outlying villages trying to force them
          torecant their faith: Now, therefore, be it
          Resolved by the House of Representatives
          (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of
          Congress that (a) in accordance with our own
          history and national traditions of opposition to
          religious persecution, as well as in full respect
          for international law and custom, the United
          States condemns and opposes the religious per-
          secution of peoples of the Baha'i faith by the
          Government of Iran.
          (b) The President and other official repre-
          sentatives of the United States should at every
          opportunity before international forums reiter-
          ate and emphasize the extent to which we de-
          plore and condemn the religious persecution of
          peoples of the Baha'i faith by the Government
          of Iran.
          
        
          
          ‘1
          
        
          
          11 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          Three Years of Horrors
          PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES F. NELSON
          I am a judge of the Municipal Court of Los
          Angeles and the chairman of the National
          Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the
          United States—the governing board of trust-
          ees elected by the 100,000 members of the
          American Baha'i community. With me is
          Firuz Kazemzadeh, professor of history and
          chairman of the Committee on Middle-East-
          ern Studies at Yale University, and vice-
          chairman of our National Assembly. Also
          with me is Glen ford E. Mitchell, secretary
          and chief executive officer of our National
          Assembly. My colleagues and .1 appreciate
          the opportunity to testify today before the
          Subcommittee on Human Rights and Inter-
          national Organizations concerning the horri-
          ble acts of discrimination against the rnem-
          hers of tl e Baha'i Faith in Iran.
          F the last three-and-one-half years the
          Baha'i community of Iran has suffered
          relentless persecution. The horrors that are
          being inflicted upon it stagger the imagina-
          tion. They constitute without any doubt a
          gross violation of all fundamental human
          rights.
          —In Miandoab, a mob, after destroying the
          local Baha'i center, fell upon a man and
          his son, dragged their bodies through the
          street, and chopped them up into small
          Pieces that were finally consigned to
          (lames.
          —in Nuk. a farming village near Birjand,
          fifteen masked men attacked a couple in
          their home at night, poured kerosene on
          the husband and set him on fire before
          forcing him to run for a few yards; finally
          they heaped wood upon him, burning
          him to death. His wife, subjected to similar
          treatment, died a few days later.
          —In Shiraz. 300 Baha'i homes were burned.
          —In Teliran, the dead bodies of executed
          Baha'is were written upon in large script.
          These ghoulish markings included the epi.
          diet “enemy of Islam.”
          —In Yazd, following the execution of seven
          Baha'is, including an 85-year-old man, the
          authorities presented their widows with
          bills to cover the cost of the bullets used to
          execute them.
          —In Musa-Abad Village, two teenage girl
          students were abducted from school by
          their religion teachers. The parents have
          been unable to determine their fate. The
          teachers claimed that the girls had con-
          verted to Islam and refused to meet their
          Baha'i parents, a most unlikely story.
          —In Kashan, a teenage girl was abducted
          and forced to marry a Muslim despite her
          being under age.
          —Tn Shiraz, a high-ranking authority de-
          creed that a Baha'i widow had no right to
          the pension due from her husband's insur-
          ance and could not retain custody of her
          children.
          —In Tehran, the High Court of Justice up-
          held a verdict of the Shiraz Revolutionary
          Court that cited membership in Baha'i
          Assemblies as a crime punishable by death.
          Since this verdict more than sixty Baha'i
          leaders have been executed.
          The Iranian Baha'is have no recourse for
          redress of grievances. The constitution of the
          Islamic Republic does not recognize the
          Baha'i Faith, although similar religious mi-
          norities are recognized. Thus the patient and
          repeated appeals of the Baha'is to the au-
          thorities fall on deaf ears.
          The Baha'i Faith originated in 1844. Ever
          since then its history has been marked with
          bloody periods of persecution. However, the
          new attacks began with the Islamic revolu-
          tion in the autumn of 1978. Between Sep-
          tember 25 and December 14 of that year
          
        
          
          THREE YEARS OF HORRORS
          15
          the community recorded 112 instances of.
          assault upon its members. There were loot-
          ings, burnings, beatings, murders, the de-
          secration of cemeteries, the disruption of
          meetings—all intended to force Baha'is to
          deny their faith. The attacks spread rapidly
          to every province in Iran.
          IN THE SPRING of 1979, when the Islamic
          Revolutionary Government of Ayatollah
          Khomeini was already firmly established,, the
          campaign against the Baha'is assumed an of-
          ficial form and increased in magnitude:
          —2,000 men, women and children were
          driven from their homes and sought refuge
          in the deserts and mountains.
          —The House of the Bab, the holiest shrine
          in Iran for Baha'is and a place of pilgrim-
          age for the Baha'is of the world, was
          seized on the pretext that it was being held
          by the authorities as a protection against
          mob atack. It was ultimately razed, the
          site obliterated by a hastily constructed
          road.
          —Nawnahalan company, which served as a
          savings and loan association primarily for
          the benefit of Baha'i children, was con-
          fiscated.
          —Omana company, which held in trust
          Baha'i community properties, including
          holy places and historic sites that had been
          in the possession of Baha'is for more than
          a century, was similarly confiscated. As na-
          tional and local properties were seized, so
          too were the sacred literature and records
          of the community.
          —The Ministry of Education issued a circular
          that those Baha'is who did not deny their
          faith should immediately be discharged
          from their jobs as teachers.
          —Baha'is were arrested without charge in
          various localities.
          Soon it ,became apparent that the cam-
          paign directed against the Baha'i community
          was systematic and centrally directed. The
          Human Rights Commission of the Federa-
          tion of Protestant Churches in Switzerland
          issued a report in Zurich on September 12,
          1979 in which it described the methods and
          ends of the persecution as “administrative
          strangulation,” ‘ flnancial strangulation,” “so-
          cial and personal strangulation.” Other re-
          ports, including the published dispatches of
          the correspondents for Reuters, The Associ-
          ated Press, Le Monde, The New York Times.
          The Washington Post, The Los Angeles
          Times, signified the deepening crisis for the
          Baha'is of Iran. These reports combined to
          portend the imminence of genocide.
          The final blow was to be the elimination
          of the leadership of the community. The
          primitive logic was clear: a body without
          a head could not survive. Beginning in 1980,
          shortly after the taking of American hostages,
          a rash of disappearances, arrests, and execu-
          tions of members of Baha'i local and national
          governing bodies shocked the community.
          The abduction of all nine members of the
          National Assembly on August 21 confirmed
          the rumor of a plot to wipe out the Baha'i
          leadership. The National Assembly members
          were meeting in a private home, when revo-
          lutionary guards forcibly took them away,
          along with two other officers of the Faith
          with whom they were conferring. No trace
          of them has been found, and they must be
          presumed dead. Eight members of the sub-
          sequent National Assembly were similarly
          abducted and then secretly executed in Teh-
          ran last December. Six of the nine members
          of the Tehran Assembly met the same fate
          in January 1982. Scores of other local As-
          sembly members have been executed in dif-
          ferent parts of the country, some after tor-
          I
          
        
          
          16 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          ture. Scores more languish in jail, their fate
          unknown.
          How do Iranian authorities justify the per-
          secution of the Baba'is? The Baha'i Faith is
          not recognized in the constitution of the
          Islamic Republic. Therefore, Baha'is are not
          entitled to protection under the law and
          have no opportunity to defend themselves
          against false accusations. Baha'i marriages
          are not sanctioned by law. Therefore, their
          issue are not recognized as legitimate. Since
          Baha'i marriages are not recognized, Baha'i
          women are proclaimed prostitutes.
          The Shiite clergy and the Government per-
          sistently accuse the Baha'i Faith of being a
          political conspiracy that serves the interests of
          foreign powers, including the United States.
          This, in spite of the fact that Baha'is strictly
          avoid disloyal and subversive activities.
          The clergy and the Government claim that
          the Baha'is were favored by the regime of
          the Shah and ran his secret police, the
          SAVAK, when in fact the Baha'is were per-
          secuted under Pahiavi rule and were Ire-
          quenrly the SAVAK 's victims.
          The clergy and the Government accuse
          the Baha'is of serving the interests of Zion-
          ism and Israel. As proof they point to the
          fact that the Baha'i world center is located
          in Haifa, Israel, and that Baha'is send money
          to that country. Indeed, the Baha'i world
          center is in Israel. This occurred because 114
          years ago the government of the Ottoman
          Empire forcibly brought the founder of the
          Baha'i Faith and His disciples to Akka,
          which was then in the province of Syria.
          Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Faith,
          died in Akka and ever since then the twin
          cities of Akka and Haifa have been the
          spiritual center of the Baha'i Faith long pre-
          dating the State of Israel.
          The allegations that the Baha'is transfer
          funds to Israel are made out of sheer mis-
          chief. Baha'i pilgrims from all parts of the
          world regularly travel to Israel to visit the
          Shrine of Baha'u'llah, and other sites closely
          associated with their religion. Thousands of
          Iranian Bahais made this pilgrimage during
          the time when they were permitted by law
          to visit Israel. In accordance with the clear
          requirements of the Baha'i Faith, its world
          spiritual and administrative centers must
          always be united in one locality. Accordingly,
          the world administrative center of the Baha'i
          Faith has always been and must continue to
          be in the Holy Land. It cannot be relocated
          for the sake of temporary political expedi-
          ency. Contributions sent by Baha'is to their
          world center in Israel are solely and ex-
          clusively for the upkeep of their holy shrines
          and historic sites, and for the administration
          of their Faith. Almost all Baha'is in Iran
          have made such contributions, and this inno-
          cent action is used to support charges of their
          collusion with Israel.
          These allegations are a sham. They are a
          smokescreen for religious fanaticism. Time
          and again the persecutors have confirmed by
          their own acts that their charges are ground-
          less. The fake trials of the Baha'is never deal
          with the substance of any of these accusa-
          tions; rather, the prosecutors attempt to learn
          about the operations of the Baha'i community
          and to force the defendants to recant their
          faith. In November 1981, a couple in whose
          home the members of the Tehran Baha'i As-
          sembly met when they were arrested, were
          put on trial. The wife refused to recant, was
          sentenced to death for espionage and exe-
          cuted. Her husband recanted and was set
          free, fully absolved of the charge of spying.
          In former and simpler times, the Shiite
          clergy did nor need to invent justifications
          for their hatred of the Baha'i Faith. Back
          then they persecuted “heretics” and did not
          have to bother with notions of religious
          tOlerance. Today, the clergy are as determined
          as ever to eradicate the Baha'i Faith, but feel
          they need elaborate justifications for their
          murderous acts.
          The Shiice clergy's hatred of the Baha'is is
          at its root purely religious. The Muslim
          clergy hold that Muhammad was the last of
          a series of prophets going all the way back
          to Adam. The Baha'is, however, believe that
          
        
          
          the dialogue between God and man can
          never stop, that Baha'u'llah was a prophet of
          God. equal to Muhammad, and that in the
          future there will be others who will continue
          to bring divine revelation to humanity. More-
          over, Baha'u'llah abrogated particular Is-
          lamic laws such as holy war, polygamy, cer-
          tain dietary laws, and regulations concerning
          ritual purity.
          Equally offensive to the Shiites is the
          Baha'i principle of the equality of men and
          women. Perhaps even more upsetting is the
          fact that the Baha'i Faith does not have a
          clergy but is, instead, governed by demo-
          cratically elected bodies. Moreover, by pro-
          moting the unity of mankind as its pivotal
          principle and by envisioning a federation of
          nations under a world government, the
          Baha'i Faith shatters Shiite notions of ex-
          clusiveness and monopolistic possession of
          power.
          Thus the Baha'is are frequently accused of
          being “enemies of Islam,” which in an Is-
          lamic Republic also means enemies of the
          state. Yet it must be recognized that wherever
          the Baha'is have spread their religion, they
          have succeeded in spreading reverence for
          Islam and its prophet. Moreover, they have
          taught their' fellow-believers in more than
          100,000 lo alities around the globe to love
          Iran as the birthplace of their religion.
          The situation in Iran also affects Baha'i
          communities in other countries. The anti-
          Baha'i propaganda spouted by the Iranian
          Islamic Republic spreads misunderstanding
          and suspicion of the Baha'i community far
          and wide. Even in the United States, Amer-
          ican Baha'is had to battle against the power
          of mass communications as Iran's spokesmen
          have taken to the airwaves with half-truths
          and outright lies. There have been instances
          in which fanatical Islamic Iranians have
          made attempts to disrupt Baha'i activities in
          our own country. For example, on March 27
          this year, the Baha'is of Morgantown, West
          Virginia, were prevented from holding a
          prayer meeting when a group believed to be
          Iranian students threatened the management
          THREE YEARS OF HORRORS
          17
          of the hotel in which the event was to have
          taken place. Similar incidents have occurred
          in Reno, Nevada, and Minneapolis, Minne-
          sota. It seems that some Iranian Muslims
          residing in the United States are attempting
          to intimidate the American Baha'i commun-
          ity and to create for it the same oppressive
          conditipns ecisting in their own country.
          WE have cited in this brief statement the
          most telling evidences of the persecution• of
          the Iranian Baha'i community, namely: the
          wholesale seizure of Baha'i sacred literature,
          the confiscation of national and local records,
          the expropriation of the community's prop-
          erties and other assets, and the execution of
          its leaders. No extensive analysis is needed
          to determine the precise intention behind
          these acts. A community deprived of its in-
          spiration, of its memory, of its material
          means, and of its leadership becomes extinct.
          That these deadly afflictions have not suc-
          ceeded in breaking the spirit of the Baha'i
          community is a clear indication of its deep
          rootedness, its resilience, and its determina-
          tion to survive. But there are limits to human
          endurance, and it is our hope that before it
          is too late the governments and peoples of
          the nations will join in the effort to ensure
          the security of this innocent minority.
          It is the task of the Baha'is of other lands
          to help their Iranian co-religionists by calling
          the attention of the world to the horrors that
          are being perpetrated in the name of religion.
          On many occasions in this century, the world
          averted its eyes when fanatics, demagogues,
          and dictators of various stripes massacred
          national, racial, and religious minorities, or
          filled concentration camps with “class ene-
          mies,” deprived of their most fundamental
          rights all those who dared to differ from their
          brutal orthodoxies even in thought. Decency,
          respect for human rights, and love of one's
          neighbor, be he ever so distant geographical-
          ly, are as indivisible as peace. Humanity can-
          not afford to remain silent and by its silence
          to condone evil.
          We, the Baha'is of the United States, feel
          no animosity toward the government of Iran.
          
        
          
          18 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          We feel genuine sympathy for the long-
          suffering Iranian people and wish for them
          a peaceful and happy future. However, we.
          cannot remain indifferent to the sufferings of
          our Iranian brothers and sisters at the hands
          of bigots, who have no compunctions about
          shedding innocent blood. We call upon our
          fellow citizens and our elected representatives
          to proclaim that America will not acquiesces.
          in oppression and that its perpetrators will
          have to answer for their deeds in the court
          of world opinion.
          Mr. Chairman: Again I thank you for
          giving time to the Baha'i community to pre-
          sent to your Subcommittee information about
          one of the most compelling cases of religious
          persecution in modern history.
          •— -. —.‘‘ - —.. .. .,
          
        
          
          The Roots of the Hatred
          PREPARED STATEMENT OF FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
          19
          I am professor of history and chairman of the
          Committee on Middle-Eastern Studies at Yale
          University in New Haven, Connecticut. I am
          also vice-chairman of the National Spiritual
          Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States.
          J UDGE James Nelson has outlined the story
          of the large-scale persecution that has be-
          fallen the Baha'is of Iran. I do not intend
          further to dwell on the horrors that are daily
          being perpetrated against men, women, and
          children who belong to an innocent and de-
          fenseless religious community. Rather I shall
          attempt to provide some historical informa-
          ticin that would help place the recent events
          in perspective and explain the intense hatred
          the fundamentalists among Iran's Shiite
          clergy feel for the Baha'is.
          The Shiite sect of Islam became Iran's
          state religion in relatively modern times. It
          was only in the sixteenth century, under the
          patronage of the Saf avid dynasty, that Shiism
          assumed a dominant position. Some two
          hundred years later the state underwent
          catastrophic decline. An Afghan invasion,
          followed by anarchy, extensi 'e military ad-
          ventures, protracted dynastic and tribal rival-
          ries, and the resultant economic decline led
          to the diminution of secular authority and to
          an inordinate increase in the influence of the
          clergy.
          In the early nineteenth century, the clergy
          was truly the first estate of the realm. The
          new rulers, members of the semi-nomadic
          Qajar Turkoman tribe, had no legitimate
          claim to the throne and felt the need for the
          goodwill of the mullahs who wielded enor-
          mous economic and political power. So great
          had their influence become that they con-
          trolled the streets of the principal cities, were
          able to precipitate the massacre of the entire
          staff of a foreign legation and to provoke a
          disastrous war. In a culture that did not sepa-
          rate religion from politics, the clergy partici-
          pated in the governance of society, exercis-
          ing virtual monopoly over the judiciary, and
          involving itself heavily, and at times decisive-
          ly, in every significant national issue.
          The clergy's spiritual and secular authority
          rested largely on its claim to represent the
          Hidden Imam, a descendant and successor of
          the prophet Muhammad, who, according to
          ancient tradition, had disappeared in the year
          260 A.H. and whose return the Shiites anx-
          iously awaited.
          In May 1844, in the southern city of
          Shiraz, a young merchant, Seyyed Ali Mu-
          hammad, proclaimed himself the Bab, or
          Gate, through which believers could gain
          access to the Hidden Imam. As his mission
          evolved, the Bab revealed to a rapidly grow-
          ing circle of dedicated disciples that he was
          the Hidden Imam himself, a new prophet
          and a herald of a still greater divine mes-
          senger who would soon come to fulfill mil-
          lenial prophecies and bring about righteous-
          ness on earth.
          The Bab's teachings were a direct chal-
          lenge to the Islamic fundamentalists. The
          Shiite clergy held that Muhammad was “the
          seal of the prophets,” that with him revela-
          tion had come to an end. Those who believed
          otherwise were declared renegades deserving
          death. Moreover, the Bab gave allegorical
          interpretations to such traditional beliefs as
          bodily resurrection and abrogated a number
          of Islamic laws and ceremonies dealing with
          prayer, fasting, marriage, divorce, inheritance,
          and the status of women. Last but not least,
          the Bab and his disciples eloquently de-
          nounced the corruption of the clergy and the
          laity, the iniquities heaped upon the people
          I
          
        
          
          20 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 198?
          by greedy and arbitrary rulers, the selfishness
          of the rich and the misery of the poor.
          Angered and frightened by the spread of
          the Babj movement, the clergy and the gov-
          ernment determined to crush it by force.
          Vigorous attacks were launched against the
          Babis. Faced with the threat of mass murder,
          they resisted and were defeated in an un-
          equal struggle against the military forces of
          the state. Thousands perished in the resis-
          tance; other thousands including unarmed
          women, children, the sick, and the aged were
          systematically put to death by an enraged
          enemy. The Bab himself was executed in
          July I 85() by a firing squad. Two years later
          a few of his disciples made an attempt on the
          life of the Shah but succeeded only in un-
          leashing another massacre in which died most
          of the prominent leaders of the movement.
          The government and the clergy now felt
          that the danger had passed. A majotity of
          the Bahis were dead; the rest were dispirited
          and inactive. Few of their outstanding lead-
          ers survived and most of these were in exile.
          The masses had been inoculated with a pas-
          sionate hatred of the accursed renegades. The
          very word Babi assumed pejorative conno-
          tations and was used as a mortal insult.
          A decade later the situation changed
          radically. One of the few prominent Babi
          Survivors, Mirza Husayn Au, known as Baha'-
          u'llah, assumed the leadership of the com-
          munity, unified it, and gave it a new vitality.
          In 1863 lie proclaimed himself to be the
          great messenger whose advent the Bab had
          so insistently foretold. Most of the Babis
          accepted his claim and became Baha'is, fol-
          lowers of Baha'u'llah.
          THE RE/!IVAL of the Babi Faith surprised and
          alarmed the Iranian authorities. They re-
          gretted that they had exiled Baha'u'llah to
          Baghdad where lie was in constant contact
          with Iranian pilgrims who visited the Shiite
          holy places in Iraq and who spread his fame
          all over Iran. In 1863, at the request of the
          Iranian Government, the Turkish Sultan
          transferred Baha'u'llal-i and a number of his
          adherents first to Constantinople and then to
          Adrianople. In 1868 Baha'u'llah was taken
          to Akka, a fortified town then in the province
          of Syria, now in Israel. In Akka and its vicin-
          ity Baha'u'llah spent the rest of his life as a
          prisoner of the Ottoman state.
          Over the span of sonic forty years Baha-
          u'llah produced a vast body of work which
          toda'y constitutes the sacred scriptures of the
          Baha'i Faith an(l is the source of its princi-
          ples and teachings. Baha'u'llah taught that
          God, unknowable in His essence, periodically
          revealed His will to humanity through a suc-
          cession of messengers among whom were
          Moses, Jesus, Zoroaster, Muhammad, and the
          Bab. Each was a link in a never-ending chain
          of progressive revelation that provided the
          spiritual impetus for the development of hu-
          manity. It was the task of humanity innerly
          to seek divine qualities, while actively par-
          ticipating in the advancement of civilization.
          Like the Bab before him, Baha'u'llah af-
          firmed the validity of Jslam and the divine
          character of Muhammad's mission. However,
          he gave his followers laws and prescribed for
          them practices that differed radically from the
          laws and practices of Islam. This, indeed, was
          no Islamic sect but an entirely independent
          religion with its Own scripture and its own
          law. Baha'u'Ilah's teachings on the unity of
          mankind, the equality of races, the equality
          of sexes, universal education, the harmony of
          religion and science, the establishment of a
          world federation, and the maintenance of
          world peace through collective security, his
          advocacy of a universal auxiliary language,
          and of other measures designed to bring
          about a peaceful and inter-dependent world
          society were far too advanced to be under-
          stood by his contemporaries. These teachings
          ignited in the Shiite clergy the same pas-
          sionate hatred it had earlier felt for the Bab,
          his teachings, and his followers.
          As the Baha'i community grew by attract-
          ing a significant proportion of enlightened
          and forward looking Iranians, so grew the
          hostility of the reactionary elements within
          the clergy. It is these fanatical opponents of
          w
          
        
          
          THE ROOTS OF THE HATRED
          21
          all progress and reform who succeeded in
          conveying their own fears and dislikes to the
          rest of the population. The Baha'is were
          placed in a difficult position.
          Their enemies accused them of subverting
          Islam, of preaching that Baha'u'llah was
          God, of betraying their country, of commit-
          ting ll sorts of abominations. The Baha'is
          were denied the right to reply. At no time
          in their history were they permitted to debate
          their accusers, refute the allegations in the
          press, publish books or magazines, or use
          radio and television. For more than 100 years
          the people of Iran have listened to a mono-
          logue, a single voice spouting hate.
          Modernization brought certain changes in
          the situation of the Shiite clergy. Its position
          was somewhat weakened by the spread of
          education, a general decline .of religion
          among the elite, and the growth of national-
          ism that idealized Zoroastrian Iran and took
          a dim view of the Islamic conquest and the
          consequent adoption by the Iranians of a
          foreign religion. In the atmosphere of na-
          tionalism, skepticism, and religious indiffer-
          ence, there began to grow the notion of toler-
          ance that extended even to die Baha'is. The
          clergy mobilized all its resources to resist
          this trend.
          By the late 1930s the mullahs had created
          a whole new arsenal of anti-Baha'i weapons.
          It was suddenly discovered that the Baha'is
          were unpatriotic. Proof of this was found in
          Baha'u'llah's proclamation of the unity of
          mankind, in his advocacy of an international
          auxiliary language, and in the emphasis lie
          placed on universal peace. Since the then
          reigning shah, Reza Pahiavi, was strongly
          anti-Soviet, clerical propagandists tried to
          link the Baha'is with Russia.
          ABOUT 1939, a clerical society in the holy
          city of Mashhad, produced what purported
          to be a translation of the non-existent mem-
          oirs of Prince Dalqurki (their rendition of
          the name Dolgorukii, or, more exactly Dol-
          gorukov). In his invented memoirs, “Dal-
          qurki” tells of being sent in 1.844 by Tsar
          Alexander II to Iran to weaken that country
          by creating a schism within Islam. In pursuit
          of his mission, “Dalqurki” supposedly created
          the Babi movement which was, therefore,
          not a religion but only an instrument of for-
          eign penetration. Unfortunately for the au-
          thors of this fraudulent document, they did
          not know .Russian history. Thus they missed
          the fact that in 1 844 Russia was ruled by
          Nicholas I and that Alexander II did riot
          ascend the throne until 1855. They did not
          know that Dolgorukov had served in Iran
          briefly in 1831., when the Bab was only 1.2
          years old and did not become minister until
          1846, when the Babi movement had already
          been well launched.
          Regardless of their illiteracy and absurdi-
          ty, the fake memoirs of Prince “Daiqurki”
          have entered the mainstream of Iranian
          thought. They are known and believed by
          a vast majority of educated and otherwise
          intelligent Iranians. Only a few Iranian
          scholars, among them the anti-clerical and
          anti-Baha'i historian Abmad Kasravi and the
          literary scholar Mojtaba Minovi, were not de-
          ceived by this clerical fabrication.
          When anti-British sentiments swept Iran
          after World War II, the Baha'is were accused
          of serving the British. During World War I,
          ‘Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'u'llah's eldest son and
          successor as leader of the Baha'i community,
          had organized famine relief in the towns of
          Haifa and Akka, where lie had lived as an
          exile since 1.868. In recognition of his philan-
          thropic acts, the British authorities that gov-
          erned Palestine after the collapse of the Ot-
          toman Empire, knighted ‘Abdu'l-Baha. This
          minor event became the basis of the legend
          that the Baha'is have been the agents of the
          British—a legend that has found a bizarre
          expression in an outlandish book recently
          published in America by a certain Robert
          Dreyfuss, who had made the Baha'is into the
          allies of Ayatollah Khomeini in the service
          of the British.
          With the spread of anti-Americanism in
          the last ten to fifteen years, it became fash-
          ionable to link the Iranian Baha'is to the
          United States where there exists a relatively
          j.
          1•
          I ;
          
        
          
          22 wORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          large and active Baha'i community. The very
          fact that the first Baha'i House of Worship
          in the western world stands on the shores of
          Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago, has
          been cited as evidence of the connection.
          Since 1979 a new accusation has been
          added: cooperation with Zionism. The
          basis of this latest invention is the location
          of Baha'i holy places and of the Baha'i inter-
          national administrative center in Israel. It is
          conveniently forgotten that Baha'u'lIah did
          not choose the place of his exile and that he
          was brought to Akka as a prisoner 80 years
          before the creation of the state of Israel.
          I HAVE MENTIONED the various allegations
          made about the Baha'is to show the unprin-
          cipled nature of such allegations. They are
          all only a cover for religious bigotry. Yet they
          demonstrate the depth of clerical hostility
          toward the Baha'is and the success the mul-
          lahs have had in poisoning the minds of
          many decent and well-meaning Iranians. Re-
          ligious prejudice, like racism, sprouts deep
          rOOtS.
          In 1925, frightened by the spread of re-
          publican ideas from neighboring Turkey, a
          nation that was undergoing complete secu-
          larization, the Shiite clergy helped the mili-
          tar)' dictator Reza Khan become shah. How-
          ever, Reza Shah pushed the mullahs to the
          periphery of national life. He secularized the
          courts and the schools, and crushed all cler-
          ical protests by brute force. Not until his
          removal in 194 1 did the clergy get a new
          lease on political life and begin to organize
          clubs and auxiliary societies dedicated to the
          reestablishment of their former inifuence.
          In the early 1950s, one of the leading
          mujtahids, Ayatollah Kashani, first lent sup-
          port to Dr. Mosaddeq, then abandoned him
          at the last moment facilitating the restoration
          of Mohammad Reza Shah after his three days'
          exile abroad. Of course, the Shah was ex-
          pected to pay for the help he had received.
          The extremists among the clergy led by
          Mullah Taqi Falsafi, were granted the right
          to conduct an anti-Baha'i campaign using
          government radio and the press. The clergy
          was also permitted to organize societies such
          as Tabliqhat-e Eslami whose aim was the
          eradication of the Baha'i Faith from Iran.
          A number of individuals later prominent in
          the government of the Islamic Republic of
          Iran, for instance its second president Mo-
          hammad Au Rajai, had participated in the
          anti-Baha'i activities of the 1950s. These
          consisted of the disruption of Baha'i study
          classes, prayer meetings, weddings, and fu-
          nerals; physical attacks on individual
          Baha'is; the intimidation of employers who
          hired Baha'i workers; the harassment of
          Baha'i children in schools; the publication
          and dissemination of scurrilous anti-Baha'i
          literature, and the promotion of outright
          anti-Baha'i pogroms.
          In 1955 the Iranian government fully co-
          operated with the Islamic extremist societies.
          The army occupied the national Baha'i head-
          quarters in Tehran, the chief of the imperial
          staff himself dealing the first blow, with a
          pickaxe, to the dome over the large meeting
          hail. World public opinion loudly condemned
          the pertecution of the Baha'i community,
          forcing the Iranian government to relent and
          to abandon the campaign.
          In the next decade, the Shiite clergy again
          lost much of the influence it had regained in
          the 1950s. A substantial segment of the
          clerical establishment assumed a firmly neg-
          ative attitude toward land reform, the ex-
          tension of the franchise to women, and to-
          ward the ever-accelerating process of mod-
          ernization. This negativism turned to the
          mullahs' advantage in the 1970s.
          Rapid urbanization with the concomitant
          dislocation of the agricultural sector, the rise
          of modern industry, the arrival of traffic
          problems and air pollution, the visible in-
          crease in foreign influence, drastic changes in
          the lifestyle of urbanized Iranians, wide-
          spread corruption in government and busi-
          ness, the conflict between the traditional ba-
          zaar bourgeoisie and the modern entrepre-
          neurial class. the oppressive policies of a
          
        
          
          THE ROOTS OF THE HATRED
          23
          government that seemed insensitive to the
          nonmaterial needs of the population, the rise
          of a large class of educated technocrats—
          these were only some of the factors that sud-
          denly made the negativism and fundamental-
          ism of the mullahs seem attractive to much
          of the population.
          Elements among the reactionary clergy,
          particularly those that clustered around the
          specifically anti-Baha'i organizations, such as
          the Tabliqhat-e Eslami and the Anjoman-e-
          Hojjatiyyeh, played a double game. Founded
          with the blessings of the government and
          working in close cooperation with the
          SAVAK—the political secret police—these
          organizations used their resources and mem-
          bership against both the government and the
          Baha'is, creating the impression that the
          Baha'is dominated the Pahlavi regime.
          Clerical propaganda constantly repeated
          that Mohammad Reza Shah was surrounded
          by Baha'is and was, perhaps, one himself;
          that his long-term prime minister Amir Ab-
          bas Hoveida, and a number of other cabinet
          ministers, as well as several high officials of
          the SAVAK, were Baha'is. These carefully
          planted and widely circulated rumors grad-
          ually became part of the received ideas shared
          by much of the urban population. The
          facts, of course, were rather different. The
          Shah was a professed Shiite with mystic ten-
          dencies that he openly discussed in person
          and in his autobiography. He did not hide
          his aversion for the Baha'i Faith but did not
          see it as a threat. For him the Baha'i com-
          munity was a source of reliable, technical
          personnel and a convenient scapegoat. He did
          use the services of a Baha'i doctor and oc-
          casionally appointed Baha'is to government
          offices that dçmanded a high degree of spe-
          cialized competence. However, no Baha'i
          served in the cabinet, because acceptance of
          a cabinet post by a Baha'i would have led to
          the expulsion of such an individual from the
          Baha'i community.
          Prime Minister Hoveida was never a
          Baha'i. His father had been one years ago
          but was expelled from the Baha'i community.
          Hoveida always insisted he was a Muslim
          and frequently stressed his negative view of
          the Baha'i Faith. The same was true of the
          SAVAK official Parviz Sabeti, whose parents
          had been Baha'is but drifted out of the Baha'i
          community. Parviz Sabeti has never been a
          member.
          It should be pointed out, however, that the
          misdeeds of an individual cannot be held
          against an entire religion. Were one to ac-
          cept the contrary principle, a criminal born
          in a protestant family would make all protes-
          tants parties to the crime. Is it necessary to
          point out that Ivan the Terrible was a prac-
          ticing member of the Orthodox Church,
          Tamerlarie a Muslim, and Hitler a Catholic?
          When the Iranian revolution broke out
          in 1978, the most radically conservative fun-
          damentalist elements within the Shiite clergy
          were determined to purge Iran of everything
          they disliked: modernism, emancipation of
          women, the rights of minorities, academic
          freedom, nonconformist thought, opera and
          the theatre, most forms of music; but their
          strongest yearning was for the destruction of
          the Baha'is. Having achieved power, the old
          enemies of the Baha'i Faith could not but use
          that power to crush a religion and a com-
          munity for whose eradication they have
          striven for 138 years.
          
        
          
          I
          
        
          
          I
          
        
          
          26 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          An Eyewitness Account
          PREPARED STATEMENT OF RAMNA MAHMOUDI NOURANI
          I am an Iranian Baha'i who came to the
          United States eleven years ago to study. I
          have a B.A. degree in mathematics from
          Wellesley College, an M.A. degree in mathe-
          rriatics from Boston University, and three
          years of graduate work towards a Ph.D. in
          mathematics from the University of Califor-
          nia at Los Angeles. My studies were dis-
          rupted due to family circumstances, particu-
          larly because of the persecution of my family.
          I am married and have a two-year-old son.
          I WOULD LIKE to make the plight of the
          Baha'js of Iran known on behalf of the
          hundreds of thousands of Baha'i men, wom-
          en, and children whose legal rights are being
          denied and who are living under the threat
          of extinction: those who have lost their
          jobs, their properties, their means of liveli-
          hood; those who may even lose the custody
          of their children; and those who have been
          imprisoned, tortured, burned to death, or
          executed for being Baha'is.
          The story of the persecution of the Baha'is
          of Iran is an intensely personal one for me.
          With the blessings of the Islamic govern-
          ment I have lost my father and my mother
          to the fanaticism and hatred of the Moslem
          clergy. This story is even more tragic be-
          cause all the atrocities committed against the
          Baha'is are done with pride, in the name of
          religion.
          Gone are the days when I was only hu-
          miliated at school by my teachers in front of
          other students for being a Baha'i. Gone are
          the days when my parents feared only a few
          years of imprisonment for “living in sin”
          since their Baha'i marriage was not recog-
          nized by the government. And gone are the
          days when the only thing you could fear
          during Baha'i meetings was the disruption by
          a few bearded young men from the “Society
          for the Propagation of Islam”—a society
          whose only goal and purpose is the destruc-
          tion of the Baha'i Faith in Iran. These days
          one pays even more dearly, sometimes with
          one's life, for being a Baha'i.
          My father, Houshang Mahmoudi, fifty-
          three, was a member of the National Spiritual
          Assembly of the Baha'is of Iran. He, along
          with the eight other National Assembly
          members and two prominent Baha'is, was
          handcuffed and blindfolded and taken away
          at gunpoint by revolutionary guards from a
          private residence in Tehran on August 21,
          1980. They simply “disappeared.” We never
          heard from my father, and all the appeals
          made by the Baha'i community of Iran to
          the Islamic government produced no result.
          We can only fear the worst. My only hope is
          that he was not tortured.
          My mother, Ginous Mahmoudi, fifty-two,
          was elected to the next National Spiritual
          Assembly of iran and served as its chairman.
          She and her colleagues on the Assembly
          were arrested on December 13, 1981 and
          executed on December 27, 1981. Their death
          was discovered accidentally. The authorities
          at 6 rst denied any knowledge of their execu-
          tion. Their desecrated bodies were found half
          buried in the “infidel” section of the Moslem
          cemetery in Tehran. Some of them were
          thrown into mass graves. No family members
          were notified, no trials took place, and no
          charges were made against them. Their bod-
          ies could not be claimed until the authorities
          were paid one thousand tumans for each
          bullet used to kill them. The Prosecuter Gen-
          eral of Iran, Ayatollah Musavi-Ardibili, later
          claimed that these eight Baha'is were exe-
          cuted because they were “foreign spies.”
          On January 4, 1982, Mrs. Shiva Mah-
          e
          
        
          
          AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
          27
          moudi, thirty-five, my cousin and a mother
          of two young children, was executed in Teh-
          ran along with five other Baha'is after four
          months of imprisonment. They were all
          members of the Baha'i Assembly of Tebran.
          They were all kept in solitary confinement—
          each ignorant of the fate of the others. As
          the date of their execution drew near, each
          one was given two pieces of paper to sign.
          One paper promised their release and re-
          turn of all their worldly possessions, if only
          they would recant their faith. All they had
          to do to buy their lives was to sign this pa-
          per. And if they signed the other paper, they
          would be sent to the firing squad. The
          treacherous authorities went even so far as
          to tell each one that all the others had re-
          canted and bad been released. All stood
          steadfast in their faith and were subsequently
          executed.
          In August 1981, a cousin of my husband,
          Mr. Habib Tabqiqi, a senior petroleum engi-
          neer, was executed in Tabriz along with eight
          other members of the Baha'i Assembly there.
          The first line of his will, which he wrote in
          prison and of which I have a copy, reads:
          ‘In an hour I, along with eight other Baha'i
          friends will be executed. My only guilt is that
          I am a Baha'i. I believe in all the Prophets
          of God including Muhammad And
          then most recently, on May 8, 1982, Mr. and
          Mrs. Foroohar, neighbors and close friends
          of my parents, were tortured and executed in
          Karaj (a suburb of Tehran) after ten months
          of imprisonment.
          All of the above-mentioned Baha'is were
          among the ‘cream of the crop” of their so-
          ciety. They were among the most educated;
          they were professionals who served their
          country and its people with honesty and
          sincerity.
          MY I ATHE1t was the most respected and
          loved television personality in Iran for over
          fifteen years. He pioneered the children and
          youth programs on television. He was also
          an educator and an author. He had a tre-
          mendous love and affection for children and
          founded a well-known secondary school in
          Tehran from which thousands •of Iranian
          children graduated. Many of them were ad-
          mitted free of charge while my father paid
          for their education. Generations of Iranian
          children came to love and respect him. He
          was a father figure for them.
          My mother was a well-known scientist,
          foremost among the women of Iran. She was
          the assistant director of the Department of
          Meteorology of Iran, supervising the research
          and training for the atmospheric studies, and
          later became its director. The Department of
          Meteorology was built by her honest, cease-
          less, and dedicated effort of twenty-five years.
          She was also the president of the Iranian
          School of Meteorology.
          After the revolution, my mother was fired
          and taken off the payroll. She was even asked
          to give back all salary she had received for
          the past twenty-five years of her service be-
          cause, they said, it was illegal for a Baha'i
          to be hired by the government.
          My father's office was looted by the
          revolutionary guards and everything in it
          either destroyed or confiscated. Even his birth
          certificate was taken away from him (per-
          haps this was to enable them to deny later
          that he had even existed). My parents' bank
          accounts were also closed. Our home at this
          point had become a shelter for many Baha'i
          families who were driven out of their homes
          and had lost all their possessions. In many
          cases the dispossessed were not allowed even
          to take their coats with them or put on their
          I
          F;
          1
          F
          
        
          
          2S WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          shoes. These families came mainly from other
          provinces of Iran. Subsequently, only one
          Baha'i family comprising an eighty-year-old
          man, his old wife, and their daughter re-
          mained in our house—all the others were
          placed elsewhere. This old couple were
          farmers from the province of Khuzistan.
          Their farm, house, and livestock were all set
          on lire by their fanatical Moslem neighbors
          and by revolutionary guards at the instigation
          of the clergy; and they themselves were badly
          beaten up. My brother who visited Tehran
          three years ago related that this old man
          could never hold back his tears when recount-
          ing this brutality. In October 1981, a similar
          fate befell our own house. Our Moslem
          neighbors watched as the revolutionary
          guards, under the supervision of Moslem
          clergy, looted our house, destroyed our prop-
          erty, and took the old couple to prison. Some
          of our neighbors rook part in the looting and
          some helped themselves with our belong-
          ings. These were the same neighbors who for
          over ten years were the recipients of my
          parents' love, kindness, and generosity.
          After my father's disappearance, I tele-
          phoned my mother weekly. We could not
          talk openly or the phone but did communi-
          cate our emotions. Every week there was
          news of fresh outbursts of atrocities heaped
          upon the Baha'is. The last conversation I had
          with her was on the day before her arrest.
          She expressed her profound sadness at the
          confiscation of the Baha'i cemetery in Teh-
          ran. She remarked: “They have even taken
          away the right of burial from the Baha'is.”
          We also received letters from her in which
          she talked about her horror and dismay at
          the official manner the Islamic government
          was taking away all the legal rights and the
          God-given rights from the Baha'is. In one
          of her letters written shortly after the revolu-
          tion, she says: “. . . Everyday you can see
          mountains of books on the streets of Teh-
          ran—all kinds of books representing all
          kinds of ideologies. In the midst of this free-
          dom, the Baha'is have no rights. They come
          and take away Baha'i books from our homes.
          They come and confiscate the Baha'i Pub-
          lishing Center and spend months in destroy-
          ing our books with shredders. One looks des-
          perately for a Baha'i book but cannot find
          any
          But this was only the beginning. In her
          later letters she writes of the destruction of
          the Baha'is themselves.
          M MOTHER travelled extensively through-
          out Iran, visiting Baha'i prisoners and their
          families and those who had lost their all. I
          would like to quote a part of one of her let-
          ters written while visiting Hamadan. She told
          us about seven Baha'is who had been tor-
          tured and executed on June 14, 1981. My
          mother knew them all very well and visited
          them several times during their year-long
          incarceration in Hamadan. She wrote: “. -
          News came at 9 o'clock in the morning that
          there are seven bodies in the morgue. Every-
          one went to the morgue to see if the news
          was true. It was. There were seven bloody
          bodies thrown on the floor. It was obvious
          how much disrespect and contempt had been
          shown even to their lifeless bodies. But more
          heinous was that their bodies were torn
          apart and tortured. One had his chest-cage
          smashed and a piece of it cut with a sharp
          object. Another had his lingers smashed and
          a piece of his stomach cut and thrown away.
          Another had his arm smashed and yet an-
          other had his leg completely torn. We asked
          the authorities for an ambulance to deliver
          the bodies to the Baha'i cemetery—it was re-
          fused. But when the Baha'is told the officials
          that they would take the bodies with their
          own hands to be buried, they finally agreed
          to provide an ambulance afraid of inhabitants
          of the town finding out about the crimes
          their rulers had committed. But the am-
          bulance that was given to us was an old
          one with all its windows broken and no
          doors. Thus, one more time, they wanted
          to humiliate the Baha'is. But the result was
          the thousands of inhabitants of Hamadan
          who came to the funeral procession, became
          witness to the cruelties heaped upon these
          
        
          
          AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
          29
          seven Baha'is whom they knew and respected.
          During their stay in prison, their knowledge,
          behavior, and innocence overwhelmed all
          the prisoners and all who came in contact
          with them. There were three medical doctors
          among them who took care of the sick in
          the prison and even the revolutionary guards
          would take their families to be examined by
          them. Another one of the Baha'is would
          help the prisoners prepare defense material.
          They were the friends and refuge of the
          prisoners
          The incredible thing my mother always
          talked about was the contrast between the
          actions of the perpetrators of such shameless
          and savage acts and their victims. The families
          of these martyred Baha'is showed such dig-
          nity and magnanimity. They even took can-
          dies and flowers to the prison distributing
          them among the prisoners and the guards,
          thanking them for having kept their loved
          ones company for so many long months.
          In a telephone conversation I had with
          my mother about a year ago, she told me
          that not even Baha'i children are immune
          from persecution. Later, she wrote in a letter:
          It is unbelievable that human beings
          could even think of pressuring innocent
          children of such tender age in the way the
          people in the schools of Iran are doing at
          this time. Thousands of Baha'i children are
          facing such inhuman afflictions. Most of them
          are very studious, are more knowledgeable
          than other children of their age. Many peo-
          ple, including their teachers look at them
          with awe. The enemies of the Baha'i Faith
          do not deny that the Baha'i children are
          generally much more advanced than their
          fellow classmates, but they are not pleased
          with this fact. Sometimes it happens that
          when government authorities complain about
          the Baha'is, they cite as examples the ac-
          tions of our little ones and how they stand
          up to the insults from their Muslim teachers
          and fellow pupils.
          “What do these children do that make
          them deserve these pressures? Most Baha'i
          children know their Islamic religious lessons
          better than all their fellow students. They
          can read the Quran and interpret it better
          than their Muslim counterparts, sometimes
          even better than their teachers. The highest
          marks in Islamic religious study are given to
          the Baha'i children. Their teachers are fre-
          quently surprised, but at the same time they
          are extremely resentful.
          ‘Bah 'i children with such intelligence, un-
          derstanding, and knowledge are not favored
          by the ideologues in the Ministry of Educa-
          tion. According to them, such children
          should be ‘g äided to the right path.' It is
          certain that this ministry has adopted a de-
          tailed and menacing plan to brainwash the
          Baha'i children. We have so much evidence
          of such a plan. It is surprising to note that
          the authorities of the present regime are
          spending so much time, energy, and money
          to prepare themselves on ways to confront
          our young children. It is not uncommon for
          two or three instructors of religious classes
          or trained ideologists of the Ministry of Edu-
          cation as well as a number of students, to
          join forces and suddenly attack a Baha'i child
          of ten or eleven years. With all their power
          they try to shatter the very foundations of
          his beliefs. They will argue with him for
          hours and even use unfair methods to ‘guide'
          him.
          “The other day, I went to visit a Baha'i
          child, eleven years old, whom I had heard
          had developed severe headaches. I asked him
          to relate his experience. He told me that his
          teacher had begun a barrage of insults and
          calumnies against the Faith—he did not pas-
          sively accept these insults—he gave impres-
          sive responses—the teacher became speech-
          less—this delighted the other children, who
          applauded and cried ‘hurrah!' for him. The
          teacher became angrier and left the classroom
          and consulted with two other teachers, who
          came to rescue. They argued and threatened
          and abused him and took him to a room,
          gave him a booklet which was written against
          the Faith, and compelled him to write re-
          peatedly from this booklet certain sentences
          which attacked the Faith in offensive Ian-
          I.'
          
        
          
          30 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          guage. This punishment became so great
          that he developed severe headaches which the
          doctor said were caused by nervous pressure.
          What an ugly confrontation! On one
          side three mature and ‘educated' teachers
          with the support and blessing of the people
          and the government and on the other side
          an eleven-year-old-Bahai youth!”
          In another letter my mother wrote that in
          Yazd, over one hundred Baha'i children
          have been expelled from their schools be-
          cause they are Baha'is and since they attain
          highest marks and are known for their ex-
          emplary conduct, the people of Yazd are
          asking: “Why should the best be expelled?”
          These were only a few instances of the
          persecution of the Baha'is in Iran that have
          affected my life personally. Our 138-year
          history is filled with unspeakable cruelties
          and atrocities against the Baha'i community.
          But, there is a difference. This time, we
          have a well-planned case of genocide, where-
          as previously the Moslem clergy and the
          government authorities ordered the slaughter
          of the Baha'is and the pillage of their prop-
          erty with pride. They did not hide the fact
          that ve were being persecuted because of
          our beliefs. Those who carried out these
          orders did so to “buy” themselves a “favor”
          in the sight of God and, for the most part,
          left the families and the properties of their
          victims alone. Today, they kill and persecute
          us for the same reason, but officially charge
          us with outrageously false misdeeds that
          even the non-Baha'is do not believe.
          
        
          
          31
          (‘ A • I .‘ /
          Reactions or american Bana is
          PREPARED STATEMENT OF GLENFORD E. MITCHELL
          I am secretary and chief executive officer of
          the National Spiritual Assembly of the
          Baha'is of the United States, the supreme
          administrative body of the Baha'is in this
          country.
          T HE United States Baha'i Community has
          been in existence for more than 80
          years. Its beginnings date back to the Co-
          lumbian Exposition of 1893 at which event
          in Chicago the name and essential teachings
          of Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the
          Baha'i Faith, were first brought to public
          notice in the United States. Although the
          Baha'i Faith originated in Iran, this Com-
          munity was established through the initiative
          of Americans and not through Iranian mis-
          sionary activity.
          The vast majority of the Community's
          100,000 members are native Americans
          drawn from every state of the Union, from
          every walk of life, and from a wide spectrum
          of ethnic backgrounds. For example, blacks
          constitute some 30 to 35 per cent of the
          American Baha'i population, and more than
          50 Indian tribes are represented in the Com-
          munity. Iranians make up no more than
          eight per cent of the membership, and the
          majority of them arrived here in the last
          three years as the persecution of the Baha'is
          intensified in their homeland.
          The Baha'i national community spreads
          through 7,400 localities. The 1,600 locally
          organized communities are administered by
          elected bodies called Assemblies. The activi-
          ties of the assemblies are unified and co-
          ordinated by the National Assembly.
          The spiritual heart of the community is
          the world-famous, architecturally unique
          Baha'i House of Worship situated on the
          shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago.
          This outstanding Illinois landmark was en-
          tered in the National Register of Historic
          Places in 1978.
          Our Community has always been dedi-
          cated to the principle of the unity of man-
          kind, to international peace, to respect for
          all religions and for all peoples, to the co-
          relative value of science and religion, and to
          the solution of human problems through con-
          sultation rather than through the use of
          force. Commitment to these ends has actuated
          our cooperation with the United Nations
          through the programs of ECOSOC and
          UNICEF, as well as our work to spread the
          Baha'i teachings of unity throughout the
          world. Moreover, this commitment prompted
          our National Assembly to designate special
          days on the calendar—Race Unity Day,
          World Religion Day, World Peace Day—
          to emphasize the need for spiritual solutions
          to critical human problems.
          Those of us imbued with Baha'i principles
          of world unity are ever conscious of the Iran-
          ian origins of our religion. Baha'i scripture
          assigns to Americans a distinctive role to-
          ward the establishment of world peace. Be-
          cause the United States Baha'i Community
          is connected historically and spiritually with
          Iran, we have a grave concern for the fate of
          our long-suffering Iranian brothers and sis-
          ters, who for 138 years have made incalcula-
          ble sacrifices of comfort and of life itself for
          beliefs we hold dear.
          Over the last three years, our National
          Assembly has been under constant pressure
          from the members of the Community, who
          have urged the Assembly to protest the
          horrible treatment meted out to their Iran-
          ian brethren. It should be noted that the
          
        
          
          2 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          Iranian Baha'i Community has not requested
          us to do anything on its behalf. It is in
          response to the letters, telegrams, telephone
          cal Is, and personal appeals of the American
          Baha'is, and in response to its own sense of
          grief, that the National Assembly has at-
          tempted to bring the heartbreaking story of
          the persecutions to the press and to our Gov-
          ernment. At times our Assembly has been
          Sc) pressured by the acute distress of the
          American Baha'is that it has advised them
          to write to Congress. Moreover, our Com-
          munity addressed a number of appeals
          through letters and cablegrams to Iranian
          Government officials here and in Iran, in-
          cluding the head of the Islamic Republic,
          hut to no avail.
          It is not our practice to demonstrate in
          public. Rather, we make appeals to the con-
          science of our fellow citizens and to those
          in authority. But the gruesome and unending
          lengths of the attacks upon the Iranian
          Bahais push us toward making a public issue
          of their suffering.
          The takeover of the United States Em-
          hassv in Tehran in 1979 reduced at that time
          our possibilities to act on behalf of the
          Iranian Bahais. Not wishing to exacerbate
          the problems for the United States Govern-
          ment, we refrained from making public
          statements. Yet it was precisely during the
          period of the hostage crisis that the persecu-
          tion of the Iranian Baha'is entered a new and
          ominous stage. A move to eliminate the
          Baha'i leadership was launched and has con-
          tinued unabated. Since the return of the
          American hostages, we have redoubled our
          efforts to inform the public and our Gov-
          ernment concerning the worsening situation.
          Wt openly state that many helpful responses
          came from the members of both Houses of
          Congress. /Ve thank Congressmen and Sena-
          tc)rs for their efforts to relieve the grief of
          the hardpressed Iranian Baha'is through their
          outspoken and recorded statements, their let-
          ters to the Iranian Government, their con-
          ferences with Iranian officials, and through
          their proposed resolutions. And we are also
          grateful for the assistance of various agencies
          of the Departnient of State and the Depart-
          ment of Justice. We recognize the importance
          of the actions of the United States represen-
          tatives to international agencies like the
          United Nations Human Rights Commission
          a t d the United Nations Suhcommission on
          the Prevention of Discrimination and Pro-
          tection of Minorities.
          While we feel they cáuld do more, the
          mass media have given signi6cant publicity
          to the crisis facing the Baha'is in Iran.
          Nonetheless, a sense of helplessness frus-
          trates our Community. Nothing lifts the op-
          pression of the Iranian Bahia'is. The resolu-
          tions of national governments and interna-
          tional organizations go unheeded. Yet the
          Iranian leaders do pay attention to outside
          opinion. A recent New York Times editorial
          about the execution of I I I Baha'i leaders
          evoked an angry published reaction from a
          government spokesman in Tchran. Our frus-
          trations notwithstanding, A mericans cannot
          relent in exposing the horrors in Iran.
          The heartrending situation in that country
          has produced other direct concerns for the
          American Baha'i Community:
          1) The spread of anti-Baha'i propaganda
          in the United States by representatives
          of the Iranian Government and fanati-
          cal Islamic Iranians residing or studying
          here.
          (2) The attempts by these fanatics to dis-
          rupt the activities of American Baha'is
          on American soil, as has occurred in
          Morgantown, West Virginia; Reno,
          Nevada; Minneapolis, Minnesota, and
          elsewhere.
          (3) The sudden influx into the United
          States of thousands of Iranian Baha'is
          seeking refuge from persecution.
          (4) The cut-off of funds to Iranian Baha'is
          studying in United States colleges and
          universities.
          (5) The decision of the Iranian Govern-
          merit to instruct its consular offices
          
        
          
          REACTIONS OF AMERICAN BAHA IS
          worldwide not to renew the passports
          of Iranian Baha'is living abroad.
          (6) The uncertain fate of Iranian Baha'is
          stranded in countries to which they have
          fled and having difficulty getting into
          the United States.
          We cite these concerns in the hope that
          the actions of our Government and of our
          fellow citizens will have the following out-
          conic:
          (1) Keep the Iranian Government and peo-
          pie constantly reminded through fre-
          quent public statements that the world
          is watching what they do to the Baha'is
          and will not tolerate it.
          (2) Prevent Islamic Iranian fanatics in this
          country from curtailing the freedom
          which American Baha'is share with their
          fellow citizens to meet in peace in the
          United. States.
          (3) Assist those Iranian Baha'is who seek
          refuge in the United States.
          33
          .4
          44
          1. i
          I
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          r
          
        
          
          PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL
          OF THE BAHA'IS OF THE UNITED STATES
          I. The Official Assault
          S INCE the revolution in 1978—79, a sys-
          tematic, government-backed campaign
          to eradicate the Baha'i Faith as an inde-
          pendent religion in Iran has gathered mo-
          mentum. The genocidal campaign has been
          characterized by the execution, arrest, abduc-
          tion, and torture of the community's leaders;
          attacks upon its hoiy places, centers, and
          cemeteries; the confiscation and destruction
          of its properties; the expropriation of the
          assets of the community and individuals; the
          seizure of its sacred literature and records;
          and by a general denial of fundamental hu-
          man rights to its members.
          The assault on Baha'i leadership began
          with the abduction, disappearance, and execu-
          non of Baha'i assembly members throughout
          Iran. The Baha'i community has no clergy.
          Its affairs are directed by national and local
          boards of trustees (called “assemblies') elect-
          ed annually by the membership. Since the
          revolution, more than 100 national and local
          assembly members have been arbitrarily ar-
          rested and executed; and another 200 are
          missing. One hundred and fifty ( 150) more
          are known to be languishing in prison, some
          for more than a year. The fate of the nine-
          member National Assembly of Iran elected
          for 1980—81 can only be surmised: all nine
          members were abducted and disappeared on
          August 21, 1.980, and must be presumed
          dead.
          Their elected replacements immediately
          demanded that the government present
          charges or explain their disappearance. No
          explanation was ever offered. Instead, action
          was taken against rhe new anional Assem-
          bly: while meeting in a private home last
          December (1 9S 1), eight Assembly members
          were arrested and secretly executed without
          charges, trial, public statement, or notice to
          their families, There was no appropriate buri-
          al. After their bodies were accidentally dis-
          covered by Baha'is, the government at first
          denied the executions, to the utter disbelief
          of the international press and of the U.S.
          Department of State, but finally conceded
          the executions. Similar fates—summary ar-
          rests, torture, and execution—have befallen
          Baha'is serving on local assemblies in vari-
          ous cities: two in Tabriz; seven in Yazd;
          two in Abadeh; three in Shiraz; seven in
          Hamadan; seven in Tehran; seven again in
          Tabriz; this January, six more in Tehran. The
          list goes on.
          Item: / T azd, Iran—September 1980.
          Seven members of the Spiritual As-
          sembly were summarily arrested and
          executed. Their bodies were branded
          “Enemies of Islam.”
          Item: Hamadan, Iran—June 1.5, 1981.
          After four hours of continuous torture
          —broken bones, cuts, burning of parts
          of the body—seven of the nine mem-
          bers of the Hamadan Baha'i Assembly
          were executed.
          As leaders and rank-and-file Baha'is faced
          executions, tortures, and arrests, the govern-
          ment activated a systematic plan to con-
          fiscate, dismantle, destroy, or desecrate every
          significant Baha'i holy place and center in
          Iran. In July of 1979, the national adminis-
          trative center in Tehran was confiscated and
          converted into an Islamic university. Else-
          where, local administrative centers were de-
          stroyed.
          Item: Gurgan, Iran—25 October 1978.
          The local Baha'i center was set afire,
          the trees uprooted, and the furnishings
          burned. The 63-year-old caretaker and
          his family were stripped of all posses-
          The Assault Upon Iran's Bah 'fs
          35
          SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY
          
        
          
          36 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          sions and left homeless.
          In March of 1979 the House of the Bab—
          one of the two nineteenth-century prophet-
          founders of the Baha'i Faith—was occupied
          by armed men on instruction from the Cen-
          tral Revolutionary Committee. Iran's U.S.
          representative Shahriar Rouhani and subse-
          quently, the charge d'affaires, Ali Asghar
          Agah responded to our expressions of grave
          concern with repeated, written assurances
          that occupation was for protection of the
          property, that the Provisional Revolutionary
          Islamic Government had no intention to
          damage or destroy it, and that reports to the
          contrary were purely inflammatory hostile
          propaganda. Six months later the shrine was
          destroyed by a government-led mob, the re-
          mains thoroughly demolished, and the site
          paved ovei-. The importance of this holy place
          for Baha'is is equivalent to the importance of
          the Church of rhe Nativity in Bethlehem for
          Christians or of the Kaaba in Mecca for Mus-
          lims. In Takur, the House of Baha'u'llah—
          rlic other prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith
          —was occupied in February 1979 by armed
          men claiming to be from the Revolutionary
          Council, then totally demolished last Decem-
          ber. The lands and gardens have been offered
          for public auction. Similarly, the grave of
          Quddus, a revered saint and hero of the Faith,
          was confiscated by the Islamic Committee.
          Hundreds of other histoi-ic sites are now be-
          ing demolished in a fresh campaign.
          So it has been with the assets of the Baha'i
          Faith in Iran. Although the Iranian Baha'i
          community has never been allowed to hold
          community property in its own name, it has
          vested commuity properties accumulated
          over the last 138 years of its existence in
          special holding companies. Privately owned
          Baha'i institutions (such as the renowned
          Misagiyeh hospital in Tehran) have been
          able to offer valued public services to Bahais
          and non-Baha'is alike. In May of 1979, the
          Omana company was confiscated by the gov-
          ernmenr, along with the one thousand Baha'i
          properties, including the holy places, religious
          sites, cemeteries, local centers, and welfare
          institutions it held. A government official
          took over the company and purged it of all
          Baha'i employees. The same happened to
          Nawnahalan, a savings and loan association
          primarily for the benefit of Baha'i children,
          when it was occupied by armed men in Feb-
          ruary 1979 and its Baha'i employees dis-
          missed. Only a few months later, the Misa-
          giyeh hospital was confiscated and closed to
          Baha'is.
          Item: Tehran, Iran—May 1 979.
          The Misagiyeh hospital, the only
          Baha'i hospital in the country, was
          confiscated and its elderly charges
          evicted. Many of them lost their assets
          with the seizure of the Baha 'i invest-
          ment company. Some months later
          Revolutionary Guards questioned
          Prof. Manuchihr Hakim, a medical
          scientist renowned for his discoveries
          in anatomy, and co-founder of Misa-
          giyeh whose humanitarian services
          won him the French Legion of Honor
          in 1976. Refusing to provide them in-
          formation on other Baha'i physicians
          and the adininistration of Misa,giyeh,
          he was murdered in his private clinic
          in January 1981 and his home was
          confiscated immediately thereaftei-.
          The government began concurrently to cut
          off the jobs and incomes of Baha'is. When
          the education ministry was under Moliam-
          med Ali Rajai in 1979, Etela'at announced
          that Baha'is would be dismissed from the
          education department unless they denied their
          faith and became Muslims. The dismissal
          notices also threatened rescission of salaries
          paid in the past. Pensions were denied to
          those discharged. After Mr. Rajai became the
          Prime Minister, a circular letter was issued
          to all government branches instructing the
          dismissal of all Baha'is. Pensions of retired
          Baha'is were cut off by the Ministry of De-
          fense. This past February, an insurance com-
          pany was instructed to deny a Baha'i widow
          her husband's pension. Banks were ordered,
          last August, to submit lists of all Baha'i ac-
          counts, while provincial governments began
          the following month to deny licenses to
          Baha'i shopkeepers and businessmen.
          
        
          
          THE ASSAULT UPON IRAN'S BAHA IS
          37
          Item: Yazd, Iran—8 August 1981.
          The government froze all assets of
          117 Baha'is, while local radio an-
          nounced the summons that the heads
          of 150 prominent Baha'i families
          should report to revolutionary authori-
          ties or risk trial in absentia.
          The assault on the adult community was
          coupled with attacks on the education of
          young Baha'is. Although the Baha'is had es-
          tablished the best primary and secondary
          schools in Iran, open to children of all re-
          ligions, the government in 1934 closed all
          Baha'i schools. After the revolution, the gov-
          ernment began systematically to refuse to
          register Baha'i students for public primary
          and secondary schools, to expel Baha'i stu-
          dents from advanced programs, to force them
          to repay scholarships, to deny diplomas to
          Baha'is graduating from professional schools,
          and to discharge Baha'i professors from uni-
          versity faculties. Iran even exported this dis-
          crimination to the United States: in August
          of 1981, the education ministry denied per-
          mission to send foreign exchange to Iranian
          Baha'i students overseas (including a number
          in the United States), effectively cutting off
          funds to study abroad.
          Item: Isfahan, Iran—July 26, 1981.
          A Baha'i student in her sixth and final
          year in medical school, was expelled
          for being a Baha'i.
          Item: Washington, D.C.—November 1981.
          Iranian Baha'i students at George
          Washington University, in their final
          year of engineering studies, were cut
          off from money by new iranian rules
          denying foreign exchange to Baha'i
          students abroad.
          For a religion which considers education a
          religious duty and which is dedicated to estab-
          lishing universal compulsory education, the
          loss of access to academic training is par-
          ticularly painful.
          Along with attacks on formal education
          came assaults on Baha'i publications. In Jan-
          uary 1979, private papers, libraries, and copy-
          ing machines of individual Baha'is were
          seized throughout Iran. The next month
          the books and papers of the National Center
          were seized, and the Publishing Trust was
          closed and sealed. The grave harm of this
          action can be assessed only by appreciating
          the obligation imposed by the founders of
          the religion upon individual Baha'is to read
          their sacred ,literature daily and to recite pre-
          scribed prayers. The damage is aggravated by
          the fact that Iranian history books have been
          purged of Baha'i references.
          Even the, dead Baha'is have not escaped
          the attention of the government. Baha'i cem-
          eteries throughout the nation have been con-
          fiscated and ruined. Decrees in Chahbahar,
          for example, forbade the use of Baha'i ceme-
          teries. The cemetery in Avak was demolished
          and the remains of the interred removed.
          Baha'i tombstones were levelled and
          smeared with human excrement in Shiraz. In
          a nation with only denominational burial
          grounds, the confiscation and destruction of
          cemeteries left Bahais with nowhere to bury
          their growing numbers of dead.
          Item: Tehran, Iran—S December 1981.
          By Revolutionary Court order, the
          Baha'i cemetery in Tehran was seized
          and closed. Eight workers were arrest-
          ed and the graves desecrated. Tens of
          thousands of Tehran Baha'is were left
          without burial grounds. Consequently,
          Baha'is were buried in a corner of the
          Muslim cemetery reserved for infidels.
          Through all of this the government has ut-
          terly refused redress to the Baha'is, has ren-
          dered them virtual aliens in their own land
          and stateless abroad. When, last September,
          Baha'is in Yazd were warned to report or suf-
          fer in absentia trials, and 10 Baha'i prisoners
          (one a 75-year-old woman) were transferred
          to revolutionary court prisons, high-ranking
          Tehran authorities refused audience to Ba-
          ha'is. When, last July in Kashan, a Baha'i
          child was kidnapped from her parents by her
          Islamic teachers, local authorities refused to
          assist in her parents' search. The Constitution
          adopted in September 1979 accords rights to
          I,.
          y
          
        
          
          WORLD ORDER: SPRING !9 2
          other religious minorities (Christians, Zoro-
          astrians, and Jews) except the largest minori-
          ty—the Baha'is, who number 300.000—400,-
          000. In March of last year the High Court of
          Justice in Tehran upheld a lower court's de-
          cision to sentence Baha'i Assembly members
          to death. The confused verdict cited partici-
          pation in Baha'i assemblies as crim-
          inal in and of itself, and punishable by
          death—a precedent for exterminating vir-
          tually every Baha'i leader in Iran. Indeed, the
          members of the National Assembly executed
          late last year were denied even a formal
          procedure: no charges were flied, trial held,
          or official publicity given. This erosion of
          civil rights has been extended abroad: last
          fall the government instructed its consular
          representatives everywhere to compile lists
          of Baha'is and either to confiscate their pass-
          ports or to let them lapse.
          II. The Mobs Unleashed
          THE MAGNITUDE of the governmental as-
          sault on the Baha'i community cannot be
          overstated. At stake is the survival of an
          independent religion. But the conditions im-
          posed on the community as a whole have
          also produced individual private horrors
          which might be forgotten in the scope and
          figures of overviews. Individual Baha'is have
          watched their homes, businesses, and families
          cruelly destroyed while suffering relentless
          intimidation and humiliation. The tolerant
          and peaceful nature of the Baha'is has spared
          their assailants the fear of violent retaliation.
          To make matters worse, the Baha'is have
          no recourse for redress of grievances.
          The rise of anti-Baha'i organizations and
          self-proclaimed enemies of the Faith to cir-
          cles of influence in the government embold-
          ened mobs of fanatics and malicious individ-
          uals to attack Baha'is with impunity.
          Shaykh Mohammad Taghi Falsafi, an anti-
          Baha'i preacher who spawned a surge of
          persecution in the 195 Os, is currently one of
          Ayatollah Khomeini's favored mullahs. The
          government is heavily influenced by Anjo-
          man-e-Hojjatiyeh, which originated as an
          anti-Baha'i organization in that era, and by
          members of Tablighat-e Esiami, an anti-
          Baha'i sqLlad formed by the clergy with the
          cooperation of the SAVAK. In perfect re-
          flection of official policy, mobs have seized
          and killed individual Baha'is: one was tor-
          tured and hanged in Tehran; a 70-year-old
          person beaten to death in Shiraz; one was
          stoned to death in Andrun; two were burnt
          alive in Shahmirzad; two others were burnt
          to death by a masked gang in Nuk. Mobs
          have looted and burned private homes
          throughout the country. At Ayatollah Sad-
          duc i's urging, Baha'i homes were attacked in
          Yazd. Preachers instigated a mob attack on
          Baha'is in Milan using loud speakers from
          the mosque. Tn Mashhad Baha'is were driven
          from their homes, their doors burned, their
          orchards and sheds set afire, the grave of a
          child plowed under, the survivors forbidden
          drinking water. In Sliishvan, a Baha'i re-
          turned from out of town to find his home
          looted and barred, his orchard destroyed.
          Outside Isfahan, Baha'is fled to tent-cities in
          the desert after their homes were confiscated.
          The list is long: 31 homes burned and looted
          in Marvdasht; the Baha'i center razed; the
          Baha'i center and cemetery destroyed in
          Arabkhayl; shop windows broken in Babul-
          sar; farm products burned with homes in
          Baghestan.
          Item: Manshad, Iran— i I August 1981.
          Government official from Yazd or-
          dered revolutionary guards to seize
          furniture, crops, and livestock of local
          Baha'is.
          Item: Imamzadih Quasin Sangsar, Iran—
          12 December 1978.
          People entered Mr. Laqu'is house,
          drenched him and the furnishings in
          gasoline and blocked his exit. He lost
          all belongings and suffered serious
          burns.
          Businesses were burned, a clinic dynamited.
          Pressure was put on private employers to
          discharge Baha'i employees, and most con-
          curred.
          At the same time, the families ‘erc im-
          
        
          
          THE ASSAULT UPON IRAN'S BAHA IS
          39
          periled. There developed a practice of con-
          fiscating the property of executed Baha'is,
          without judgment of confiscation and with-
          out consideration for widows and children
          left homeless and harassed. In Khurmaw a
          home was plunder d, and a family severely
          injured while protecting their daughter from
          rape. In Kashan an underage Baha'i girl was
          abducted and forced into marriage with a
          Muslim. In Khunih seven-year-old and four-
          year-old children were assaulted and beaten
          senseless with nail-tipped sticks; the beatings
          were resumed when they showed remaining
          signs of life.
          The dead were also attacked. Wanton dis-
          interment of bodies occurred in various
          places, such as Hamadan and Yazd.
          Through it all, the Baha'is have been sub-
          jected to ceaseless harassment, intimidation,
          and humiliation.
          Item: Ten villages around Hamadan, Iran
          —2 December 1978.
          Mobs arracked and looted the houses
          of all Baha'is, set them ablaze, and
          tortured Baha'is in an effort to force
          them to recant their faith. Some es-
          caped and fled.
          In Ahwaz, the radio broadcast a blanket
          threat to all Baha'is, who were met at their
          homes, searched, and told to recant. School
          children were subjected to constant harass-
          ment to try to get them to recant. In Naysha-
          bur a mob destroyed a Baha'i cemetery and
          local authorities billed the Baha'is two mil-
          lion vials for the damage. In Yazd, local au-
          thorities submitted bills to Baha'i widows for
          the bullets used to execute their husbands.
          The mob action against the Baha'is in
          • Iran has been extended somewhat to other
          countries including the United States. For
          example, on March 27 this year, the Baha'is
          of Morgantown, West Virginia, were pre-
          vented from holding a prayer meeting when
          a group believed to be Iranian students
          threatened the management of the hotel in
          which the event was to have taken place.
          Similar incidents have occuired in Reno,
          Nevada. and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
          III. The Spur ons Charges
          THE GOVERNMENT and clergy of Iran have
          attempted to justify the atrocities perpetrated
          upon the Baha'is by reciting spurious charges.
          In their attempts totally to discredit the
          Baha'i Faith and give some historical pretext
          to their allegations, they have promoted fab-
          ricated accounts of the origin and purpose
          of the. Baha'i religion, to which they fre-
          quently impure political motives. For ex-
          ample, a letter from the Iranian Embassy in
          Buenos Aires, Argentina, dated 26 Septem-
          ber 1979, and replying to inquiries about
          the persecu ion of the Baha'is, stated that
          the Baha'i Faith ‘was originally established
          by Russian Tsars and British imperialism, and
          that it is being backed by Israeli and Amer-
          ican imperialism.” Anti-Baha'i propaganda
          published by Iranians inside and outside
          Iran has echoed this fabrication. A recent
          example was the circulation in the United
          States of the article “Question of Baha'is,”
          published in the April 1, 1982, issue of
          Islamic Unity, a newspaper published by
          Iranians in Ottawa, Canada.
          The misrepresentation of Baha'i origins is
          based on a fake document created in 1938 by
          a group of mullahs in Mashhad, a holy city
          in eastern Iran. The document purported to
          be the Persian translation of the memoirs of
          a “Prince Dalqurki,” presumably Prince
          Dolgorukov, who had spent time in Iran in
          the service of his country. According to this
          invention, “Dalqu.rki” was sent to Iran in
          1 844 by the Tsar Alexander II to weaken
          the country by undermining Islam. “Dal-
          qurki” pursued this task by creating a re-
          ligion, the Babi movement. In their ignor-
          ance the authors of this fiction were unaware
          that Nicholas I, not Alexander II, was Tsar
          in 1 844. Moreover, they did not know that
          Prince Dolgorukov had served in Iran in
          1831, which predated their story by 13
          years.
          Even though Iranian scholars, including
          the anti-Baha'i historian Ahmad Kasravi and
          the literary scholar Mojtaba Minovi, saw
          through the deception, the “Dalqurki” mem-
          
        
          
          40 WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          oirs continued to influence Iranian thought.
          As recently as a month ago this influence was
          reflected in a statement attributed to a promi-
          nent clergyman in the northern city of Ta-
          briz. The 2 1 April 1982 issue of Kayha.'i, a
          nationally circulated newspaper, quoted
          Ayatollah Malakooti as saying: “In recent
          times the inlperialist superpowers, in order
          to prevent the progress of Islam and to
          create discord between Shi'ihs and other
          sects, began spreading different sects. For in-
          stance, in Hijaz and in India the British,
          and in Iran the superpower of the East, went
          into action and created this sect of Bab
          and Baha. Then when they saw that people
          will soon discover this sect to be without
          foundation they eliminated the founder of
          this sect, the British themselves placed him
          in front of a cannon and in this very city of
          Tab na.”
          In 1844, in the southern city of Shiraz, a
          young merchant, Seyyed Au Muhammad,
          proclaimed himself the Bab, or Gate. He
          said he was a new prophet and the herald
          of a still greater divine messenger who would
          soon come to establish righteousness and
          peace on earth. The Bab's claim stirred much
          opposition by the clergy, and he was executed
          in 1850. Thirteen years later, Mirza Husayn
          Au, who had been exiled from Tehran to
          Baghdad because of his prominence in tile
          Babi community, proclaimed himself to be
          the one promised by tile Bab. He became
          known as Baha'u'llah and his followers, who
          at first were drawn from the majority of the
          Babis, were called Baha'is.
          Because the clergy forbade Muslims to
          read Baha'i literature and there was no way
          open to Baha'is through mass communica-
          tions to explain their origins or beliefs, even
          the most educated and well-meaning mem-
          bers of Iranian society remained ignorant of
          tile true nature of tile Baha'i Faith.
          Tile Shiite clergy and tile Government ac-
          cuse the Baha'i Faith of being a political con-
          spiracy serving the interests of foreign pow-
          ers, including the United States; yet it is a
          fact that Baha'is everywhere strictly avoid dis-
          loyal and subversive activities. Tile Baha'is
          are taught in their sacred scripture to make
          themselves useful members of society, to
          serve humanity, to be loyal to established au-
          tilority, and to avoid partisanship.
          Tile clergy and Government accuse tile
          Baha'is of having been supporters of the
          Sllah and of having run the SAVAK,
          tJie political secret police, when in fact the
          Baha'is were persecuted under Pahlavi rule
          and became victims of the SAVAK. While
          tile Baha'i community was not as severely
          oppressed under the previous regime as un-
          der the present one, its members nevertheless
          were deprived of fundamental human rights.
          The Baila'i Faith was not recognized as a
          religion having the same rights as those ac-
          corded to other minority religions in Iran.
          Tile Baha'i community could not own prop-
          erty in its own name. Marriage according to
          Baha'i rites was denied official sanction.
          Baha'i schools everywilere in the country
          were closed.
          In 1955 the Government and clergy col-
          laborated in a large-scale attack on the Bahai
          community. At one of Tehran's mosques,
          Shaykh Muhammad Taqi Falsaui, a fanatical
          mullah, daily urged his flock to rise up
          against the “false religion.” He was permitted
          to preach incendiary sermons over the govern
          ment radio. Tile effect of the broadcasts was
          immediate. On May 2 the police locked the
          gates of the Baila'i National Center in Teh-
          ran; five days later the building was taken
          over by the army. On May 17 the Minister
          of the Interior proclaimed in tile parliament
          that tile “Baha'i sect” had been banned. A
          contemporary report described what ensued:
          This was followed by an orgy of senseless
          murder, rape, pillage, and destruction tile
          like of which has not been recorded in
          modern times. Tile dome of the Haziratu'i-
          Quds (National Center) in Tihran was
          demolished; tile House of tile Bab was
          twice desecrated and severely damaged;
          Baha'u'llah's ancestral home in Takur was
          occupied; the house of tile Bab's uncle
          was razed to the ground; shops and farms
          - - - . - - !; - —
          
        
          
          were plundered; crops burned; livestock
          destroyed; bodies of Baha'is disinterred in
          the cemeteries and mutilated; private
          homes broken into, damaged and looted;
          adults execrated and beaten; young women
          abducted and forced to marry Muslims;
          children mocked, reviled, beaten and ex-
          pelled from schools; boycott by butchers
          and bakers was imposed on hapless vil-
          lagers; young girls were raped; families
          murdered; government employees dis-
          missed and all manner of pressure brought
          upon the believers to recant their faith.
          Only the outcry of world opinion abated the
          fury of the assaults upon the Baha'i commu-
          nity.
          The same Mullab Falsafi who aided and
          abetted the participation of the chiefs of the
          imperial army in the destruction of Baha'i
          property in 1955 moves in the inner circles
          of the present regime.
          It is true that Baha'is occupied important
          administrative posts in the Pahlavi govern-
          ment requiring specialized competence; how-
          ever, they did not hold political office, be-
          cause they would have been expelled from
          Baha'i membership. The Baha'is were not
          favored by the Pahlavi regime. On the con-
          trary, they were exploited because, aside from
          having needed competencies, they could be
          trusted not to engage in anti-government ac-
          tivities. When the Shah insisted in 1975
          that all Iranians join his Rastakhiz party,
          the Baha'is refused, preferring to risk the
          consequences than to become involved in
          partisanship. This fact clearly demonstrates
          their innocence of the charge that Baha'is
          were supporters of the Shah.
          The Baha'i community was never associ-
          ated with the operations of the SAVAK. The
          Government's repeated assertion that the
          SAVAK officials General Nasiri and Parviz
          Sabeti were Baha'is is entirely false. Equally
          untrue is their claim that former Prime Min-
          ister Amir Hoveida was a Baha'i. Nasiri had
          no connection with the Baha'i Faith. Sabeti's
          father had been a Baha'i for some time but
          drifted out of the Faith; his son never be-
          THE ASSAULT UPON IRAN'S BAHAIS
          4!
          came a Baha'i. Prime Minister Hoveida was
          never a Baha'i; his father had been one but
          was expelled from Baha'i membership. Hov-
          eida always insisted that he was a Muslim
          and showed open hostility toward the Baha:is.
          It is relevant to state here the basic Baha'i
          principle that belief in a religion springs
          from the free choice of individuals and cannot
          automati cally' be inherited from an earlier
          generation. Unless an individual—even the
          member of a Baha'i family—independently
          attests to belief in the Baha'i Faith, he or she
          cannot be regarded as a Baha'i. This principle
          is well established in Baha'i communities
          around the world.
          The accusation that the Baha'is collabo-
          rate with Zionism and Israel stems from the
          fact that the international administrative
          center of the Baha'i Faith exists in Haifa,
          Israel. The Baha'i world center was estab-
          lished in Israel because 11.4 years ago the
          government of the Ottoman Empire forcibly
          brought the founder of the Baha'i Faith,
          Baha'u'llah, and His disciples to Akka, which
          was then in the province of Syria. Baha'u'llah
          died in Akka, and ever since then the twin
          cities of Akka and Haifa have been the spiri-
          tual center of the Baha'i Faith long predating
          the State of Israel. Baha'i pilgrims from all
          parts of the world regularly travel to Israel to
          visit the Shrine of Baha'u'llah, and other sites
          closely associated with their religion. Thou-
          sands of Iranian Baha'is made this pilgrim-
          age during the time when they were permit-
          ted by law to visit Israel. In accordance with
          the clear requirements of the Baha'i Faith,
          its world spiritual and administrative centers
          must always be united in one locality. Ac-
          cordingly, the world administrative center of
          the Baha'i Faith has always been and must
          continue to be in the Holy Land. It cannot
          be relocated for the sake of temporary po-
          litical expediency. Contributions sent by
          Baha'is to their world center in Israel are
          solely and exclusively for the upkeep of their
          holy shrines and historic sites, and for the
          administration of their Faith. Almost all
          Baha'is in Iran have made such contributions,
          and this innocent action is used to support
          r
          
        
          
          12 WORLD ORDRR: SPRING 1982
          charges of their collusion with Jsrael.
          The clergy regularly accuse the Baha'is of
          promoting immorality and prostitution (a
          capital offense). Their reasons are spurious.
          A basic Baha'i principle is the equality of
          men and women. Unlike Muslims, Baha'i
          men and women are treated as equals, are
          not segregated at Bahai gatherings, and serve
          together on Baha'i administrative bodies.
          These facts offend the clergy. Moreover, be-
          cause the Baha'i Faith is not recognized in
          the constitution, Baha'i marriage is
          not sanctioned by law. The issue from such
          marriages are, therefore, not recognized as
          legitimate. Since l3aha'i marriages are not
          recognized, Baha'i women are called prosti-
          tutes. Jndeed, last February, it was decreed in
          Shiraz that a Baha'i widow had no right ei-
          ther to receive pension from her husband's
          insurance or to retain custody of her children.
          Contrary to Iranian practice, the United
          Stares Embassy in the 1970s properly rec-
          ognized Baha'i marriages for visa purposes.
          The root of the discrimination against the
          Bahia'is is purely religious. The Muslim clergy
          hold that Muhammad was the “seal of the
          prophets,” the last of a series of prophets
          going all the way back to Adam. The Baha'is,
          however, believe that the dialogue between
          God and man can never stop, that Baha'u'llah
          was a prophet of God equal to Muhammad,
          and that in the future there will be others
          who will continue to bring divine revelation
          to humanity. The belief in progressive reve-
          lation is basic for Baha'is, who, therefore, ac-
          cept as fundamental truth the unity of pur-
          pose of the found of the world's major
          religions, including Zoroastrianism, Bud-
          dhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
          Moreover, Baha'u'llah abrogated particular
          Islamic laws, such as holy war, polygamy,
          certain dietary laws, and regulations concern-
          ing ritual purity. The Shiite clergy are of-
          fended by the Baha'i principle of equality
          of men and women. Perhaps even more up-
          setting to them is the fact that the Baha'i
          Faith does not have a clergy but is, instead,
          governed by democratically elected bodies.
          Furthermore, by promoting the oneness of
          mankind as its pivotal principle and by
          envisioning a federation of nations under a
          world government, the Baha'i Faith shatters
          Shiite notions of exclusiveness and monopo-
          listic possession of power. Consequently, the
          Baha'is are frequently accused of being the
          enemies of Islam, which in an Islamic re-
          ‘public also means enemies of the State.
          Nonetheless, it is a fact that wherever the
          Baha'is have spread their religion, they have
          succeeded in spreading reverence for Islam
          and its prophet. They have also taught their
          fellow-believers in more than 100,000 locali-
          ties around the globe to love Iran as the
          birthplace of their religion.
          In former and simpler times, the Shiite
          clergy did not need to invent justifications for
          their hatred of the Baha'i Faith. Back then
          they persecuted “heretics” and did not have
          to bother with notions of religious tolerance.
          The Bab's announcement of a new religion
          in 1844 precipitated violent reactions from
          the clergy-controlled state. He was impris-
          oned and then executed. During the time of
          his ministry and shortly after his death in
          1850, some 20,000 of his followers were
          slaughtered. Baha'u'llah, the prophet whose
          advent the Bab heralded, was exiled in 1853
          from his native Tehran to Baghdad; subse-
          quently, he was exiled to various parts of the
          Ottoman Empire; finally, he was taken to
          the fortified town of Akka, then in a prov-
          ince of Syria but now Israel, where, after 24
          years as a prisoner, lie died in 1892.
          Since then die Baha'i Faith has spread to
          more than 300 countries and dependencies in
          which have been established 130 Baha'i na-
          tional assemblies and more than 26,000 local
          assemblies. These facts seem to have made
          little impression on iran. Today, the Muslim
          clergy are as determined as ever to eradicate
          the Baha'i Faith, but feel that they need
          elaborate justifications for their murderous
          acts.
          Iran's denials of religious persecution ring
          hollow against the overwhelming evidence
          cited so far. The accusations of the govern-
          
        
          
          ment and the clergy are an obvious smoke-
          screen for religious fanaticism. Time and
          again the persecutors have confirmed by
          their own acts that their charges are ground-
          less. The fake trials of the Baha'is never deal
          with the substance of any of these accusa-
          tions; rather, the prosecutors attempt to
          learn about the operations of the Baha'i com-
          munity and to force the defendants to recant
          their faith.
          The elaborate accusations and widespread
          attacks are aimed at two alternative objec-
          tives: recantation or death. The evidence is
          overwhelming.
          —a couple in whose home the members of
          the Tehran Baha'i Assembly met when
          they were arrested in November 1981
          were put on trial. The wife refused to re-
          cant, was sentenced to death for espionage
          and executed. Her husband recanted and
          was set free, fully absolved of the charge of
          spying.
          —Azizullah Gulshani, of the northwestern
          city of Mashhad, was hanged on April 29,
          1982, by order of the revolutionary court.
          Kayhan, the Tehran daily newspaper, re-
          ported that he was convicted of heresy, a
          crime punishable by death.
          —An order demanding the purge of Baha'is
          from the education department made the
          promise that ‘if Baha'is convert to Islam,
          they will be reemployed.”
          —Dismissal notices by revolutionary courts
          said that jobs would continue “if the
          Baha'i workers and employees repent and
          adhere to the Islamic Ithna ‘Ashari creed
          and publish the same in the widely
          circulated newspapers with their photo-
          graphs.”
          —Baha'is in the village of Vadiquan were
          herded into a stable into which smoke was
          funneled. On the point of suffocation,
          they were taken to a mosque and forced
          to recant.
          —Baha'is in the village of Saysan, near Ta-
          briz, were given a month to decide wheth-
          er to convert to Islam or suffer the con-
          sequences. The April 26, 1982, issue of
          Kayhan, the Tehran daily newspaper, re-
          ported that a number of Baha'is had re-
          canted and the village was given a new
          name.
          —Baha'is sentenced to death were inevitably
          offered life and freedom if only they
          would recant their faith.
          For 138 years the Baha'is were turned
          into the scapegoats of Iranian society. As
          their numbers increased, they became an
          even more attractive target for demagogic at-
          tacks by those who wanted to distract the
          public or create turmoil. Since the Baha'is
          emphasized education and placed high value
          on work, they achieved a relatively high
          standard of living, which made them promis-
          ing targets of pogroms. Last but not least,
          the tolerant and peaceful nature of the
          Baha'i community made it possible to attack
          Baha'is without fear of violent retaliation.
          IV. International Law
          THIS systematic pattern of gross violations of
          the rights of a defenseless religious minority
          violates every internationally recognized
          principle of human rights. The Universal
          Declaration of Human Rights, of which
          Iran is a signatory, guarantees individual
          rights to life (§3); marriage and family pro-
          tection (§ 16); freedom from arbitrary inter-
          ference with privacy, family, or home
          (§ 12); right to security in widowhood and
          old age (§25); equal protection of the law,
          remedies for infringements, and access to
          public services ( 7, 8, 21); free expression
          ( 19); free association ( 20); freedom
          from arbitrary arrest and detention (§9);
          fair and public criminal hearings ( 10);
          freedom from torture (§5); freedom to
          manifest one's religion in teaching, practice,
          worship, and observance ( 18); freedom
          from compulsion to join another religion
          (§20.); the right to work (§23); to own
          property individually and in association with
          others (§ 17); and to .have that property pro-
          tected from arbitrary deprivation (§ 17); not
          to be arbitrarily deprived of nationality
          (§ 1.5); and to be provided education which
          TI-lB ASSAULT UPON IRAN'S BAHA IS 43
          r.
          rTT.'TT. T T —,
          L.
          S
          
        
          
          WORLD ORDER: SPRING 982
          promotes understanding, tolerance, and
          friendship among all nations, racial and
          religious groups ( 26).
          The Baha'is are being ruthlessly deprived
          of all of these fundamental hutnan rights.
          And they have no recourse for redress of
          grievances. They are arbitrarily harassed, ar-
          rested, detained, tortured, forced to recant,
          executed, deprived of citizenship at home,
          and rendered stateless abroad. Their widows
          and elderly are left homeless and penniless;
          their leaders are exterminated, often secretly;
          their homes, crops, jobs, incomes, pensions,
          property, assets, centers, cemeteries, and
          shrines are conhscated, looted, desecrated,
          and destroyed; their worship is made a
          criminal act. and their literature is sup-
          pressed. Their children are deprived of edu-
          cation and kidnapped; their families dero-
          gated and destroyed—all constituting the
          pattern of a systematic, willful and officially
          sanctioned pogrom. The community is being
          subjected to murders and to conditions of
          life calculated to bring about its physical de-
          struction. It is by very definition genocide
          punishable under the United Nations Gen-
          ocide Convenrion.* The civilized world
          * Articlc II of the Cnnvcuition on the Prevention
          and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide pro-
          vidcs that
          In the present Convention, genocide means
          any of the following acts committed with in-
          tent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
          ethn ic:il, racial or ref IL'ious group, as such:
          (a) Killing members of the group:
          b ) Causing serious bodily or mental harm
          to members of the group:
          (C) Deliberately inflicting on the group
          conditions of life calculated to bring
          about its physical destruction in whole
          or in part;
          (d ) Imposing measures intended to prevent
          births within the group:
          (e ) Forcibly transferring children of the
          group to another group.
          Article IV provides that persons committing geno-
          cide shall be punished. whether they are con-
          stitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or
          private md ividuals.”
          cannot permit it to continue unpunished by
          word or deed.
          V. Conclusion
          IRAN'S action has been labeled international
          crimes by the United States Department of
          State, has been recognized as “well planned
          genocide by Amnesty International, and
          has been roundly condemned by the inter-
          national press, by the Swiss Federation of
          Protestant Churches, by the parliaments of
          Australia, Canada, and West Germany, by
          the European Parliament, by members of the
          House of Lords in the United Kingdom, by
          many mern ers of this Congress, and by the
          United Nations Human Rights Commission
          and by its Subcommission on Prevention of
          Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
          Indeed, three Muslim countries joined in the
          unopposed resolution of the United Nations
          Subcorn mission on Prevention of I)iscrim ma-
          don and Protection of Minorities calling on
          Iran “to gran ( t) full protection of funda-
          mental rights a 1 id freedoms to the Baha'i
          religious community in Iran, and by protect-
          ing the life and liberty of (its) members.”
          Thus far, Iran has not relented. Yet we
          continue to believe that the Government of
          Iran, as a member of the community of na-
          tions, must in time respond to the collective
          voice of institutions committed to justice. The
          Baha'is in Iran cannot defend themselves, nor
          can they speak on their own behalf. It is our
          collective task in the West to call the atten-
          tion of the world to the horrors being per-
          petrated in Tran. Many times in this century
          the world averted its eyes when fanatics,
          demagogues, and dictators of various stripes
          massacred national, racial, and religious mi-
          norities or filled concentration camps with
          “class enemies,” depriving of their most fun-
          damental rights all those who dared to differ
          from their brutal orthodoxies even in
          thought. Decency, respect for human rights,
          and love of one's neighbor, he he ever so
          distant geographically, are as indivisible as
          peace. Humanity cannot afford to remain si-
          lent and by its silence condone these horrors.
          
        
          
          The Baha'is of the United States feel
          genuine sympathy for the long suffering
          Iranian people. We pray for their peaceful
          and happy future. Yet we cannot remain in-
          different to the sufferings of our Iranian
          brethren at the hands of bigots who have
          no compunctions about shedding innocent
          blood. We call upon our fellow citizens and
          our elected representarives to proclaim that
          America will not accluiesce in oppression and
          that its perpetrators will have to answer for
          their deeds in the court of world opinion.
          THE ASSAULT UPON IRANS BAHA 45•
          • Resolutions: Alaska; Illinois
          • Statements in United States Congressional
          Records
          • Resolutions by International Bodies
          • Records of Parliamentary Debates and
          Resolutions: Canada; Australia; West
          Germany; United Kingdom—House of
          Lords
          • Human Rights Commission of the Fed-
          eration of Protestant Churches in Switzer-
          land
          • Report of Amnesty International
          • Official Documentation Testifying to Dis-
          crimination Against the Baha'i Community
          Since the Creation of the Islamic Republic
          of Iran
          • The Iranian Constitution
          • Photographs of Executed Baha'is
          EXHIBITS
          • Map of Iran, showing location of events
          cited
          • List of Bahais executed in Iran
          • “The Baha'i Faith and Its World Corn-
          mututy”
          I . .
          
        
          
          .16 //‘OR Ii) ()RDuR : SPRING 1982
          Appealing to the World's Conscience
          A REVIEW OF WILLIAM SEARS' A Cry From the Heart.' The BahiuI.c in Iran
          (oxr oni: GEOR(;E RONALD, 1982) 211 PAGES + APPENDIX
          BY r IRuz KAZEMZADEH
          BOOKS have many purposes. Some are writ-
          ten to delight, others to frighten; some are
          produced to make money; others are their
          author's gift to the readers; some laboriously
          explore elusive truths, others tell glib lies,
          A Cry Franz the 1-Icart is a record of pain
          and anger born of love,
          Mr. William Sears, a prominent American
          Bahit'i, is a man of strong feelings that he
          does not want to conceal. In his long career
          as a sports broadcaster, actor, writel', and
          producer of television plays, William Sears
          developed a quick eye, a sensitive ear, and
          a fast pen. Over the entire span of his full
          and adventurous life he has perfected the
          art of loving people and communicating with
          them not only in woi'ds but in emotions as
          well.
          However, the price of love is often pain.
          When blows fall on those we love, when
          suffering afflicts them, we cannot escape, we
          cannot remain indifferent. Confronted with
          the enormity of the clerical assault on the
          Iranian Bahi i'Is, among whom Mr. Sears had
          many friends, he reacted with anger and
          wrote a book where everything is black and
          white, when it is not red with freshly spilled
          blood,
          Bill Sears, as lie is affectionately called by
          tens, if not hundreds of thousands, does not
          pretend to be a spokesman for the Bahá'I
          community or its various institutionS. This
          is a deeply personal, even idiosyncratic book;
          and in that lies its principal value. No sta-
          tistical compilations, no charts, no recitation
          of articles of treaties for the protection of
          human rights, could ever convey the horror
          of the brutal murder of the simple village
          couple, Mul ammad and Shikkar-Nisá', as
          it is conveyed in these charged pages. No
          Who's Who listing of academic honors and
          accomplishments of Professor Man iihr
          lJakIm could bring him so close to the reader
          as lie is brought by Bill Sears, his friend and
          one-time patient. No official report on the
          execution of the members of the Spiritual
          Assemblies of the Bahá'is of Yazd and Ham-
          aditn could tell the story of their voluntary
          sacrifice, their heroism, their determination,
          and their lack of hatred for their torturers
          and executioners as graphically and simply
          as it is told here by their admirer and
          mourner Bill Sears.
          Distance, the passage of time, and sober
          reflection are indispensable for the production
          of detached, balanced, and complete history.
          But how can a friend let time pass before
          crying out in pain and rage at the execution
          of those lie loved? How can one balance
          right and wrong, adjudicate between the
          torturer and his victim, or strive for com-
          pleteness, when houses are on fire, women
          are raped, children are beaten and taken
          from their parents?
          The book begins dramatically with the
          N6k murder of the Ma'st tmI couple, the only
          Bahâ'is in the village. Their home was at-
          tacked by masked men in the night, and the
          Ma's imis were burned to death. No one
          came to their rescue, no one offered help.
          The neighbors who witnessed the murder
          did not interfere with the killing of infidels.
          Of course, the killers were not punished.
          Mr. Sears then lists specific acts of persecu-
          
        
          
          ‘ • 4 .___
          tion of the Bahá'Is in Iran, among them
          illegal arrests, illegal trials, looting and con-
          fiscation of homes, arson, evictions, kidnap-
          pings, illegal confiscation of private property,
          attacks on Bahá'I children, burning of trees
          and crops, and slaughter of cattle. He es-
          tablishes the sad fact that these crimes were
          and are being committed with the knowledge,
          approval, and outright participation of gov-
          ernment authorities and high-ranking mul-
          lahs, the two frequently being one and the
          same. He then lists the standard accusations:
          the Bahá'I Faith is a subversive sect and a
          political party that supported Mul ammad
          Riçlá j 2 áh; the Bahá'Is are agents of foreign
          powers such as Russia, Britain, and the
          United States, as well as Zionist and Israeli
          spies; the Bahá'Is are opposed to Islam and
          its Prophet, and insult the Holy Qur'an; the
          Bahá'Is occupied the highest posts in the
          shah's government including that of Prime
          Minister and ran the dreaded secret police—
          SAVAK.
          The author devotes an entire chapter to a
          systematic refutation of every one of the old
          charges. He demonstrates easily and con-
          clusively that the Bahá'I Faith is an inde-
          pendent religion and cites in support of this
          rather obvious truth the opinions of Arnold
          Toynbee, Raymond Piper, Edward Benes, and
          Hugh van Rensselaer. He could have also
          cited the opinion of an Egyptian religious
          tribunal and of the scholars at the famous
          Islamic school, the Al-Azhar, who long ago
          decided that the Bahá'I Faith was not a sect
          of Islam. Mr. Sears easily disproves the allega-
          tion of favored status accorded to the Bahá'Is
          by the shahs, drawing attention to the out-
          breaks of government sanctioned persecutions
          in 1925, 1930—32, 1934, 1939—40, 1943—
          50, and 1955. Opposite page 36 he repro-
          duces a photograph that shows a high-rank-
          ing officer of the Imperial army wielding a
          pick-axe on the dome of the Bahá'I center
          in Tihr(in, while other officers look on and
          grin. And so down the list of trumped-up
          charges, every one of which is refuted with
          strong and verifiable evidence.
          While refuting the charges, William Sears
          acquaints the reader with the basic tenets of
          the Bahá'I Faith and with the spirit that ani-
          mates it followers. Again, he does not dis-
          guise his commitment. Sears is a believer,
          open about his convictions and proud of be-
          ing a member of the Bahá'I community. His
          sincerity is obvious and winning. It will earn
          him tije confidence of his readers.
          The book ends with a number of docu-
          ments that support the author's argument
          and provide first-hand evidence of the truth
          of his contentions. There is also a list com-
          piled in December 1981, an honor roll of
          eighty-four Bahá'is who have been killed in
          Iran since the summer of 1978. The list
          keeps growing. Some fifty names have been
          added to it between December 1981. and
          June 1982. More will be added in the future.
          This is a story without a conclusion, a cry
          from the heart, one man's appeal to the con-
          science of the world.
          APPEALING TO THE WORLD'S CONSCIENCE
          47
          F
          
        
          
          4S WORLD ORDER: SPRING 1982
          ART CREDITS: Cover, design by John Solarz, photograph
          by Glenford E. Mitchell; p. 2, photograph by Glenford E.
          Mitchell; pp. 4—5, photograph of the scene of the Congres-
          sional hearing on the persecution of the Iranian Bahá'Is, cour-
          tesy of the Bah 'i Office of Public Affairs; p. 7, photograph of
          Congressman Don Bonker by David Ogron/The /lmerzcan
          Bahá'I; p. 8, photograph of Congressman Edward J. Derwin-
          ski of Illinois by David Ogron/The /lmericcm Bahd'i; p. 11,
          photograph of Congressman Fortney H. Stark, Jr., by David
          Ogron/The Americau BabJ'I; p. 15, photograph of the Bahá'is
          of Yazd preparing the graves for the seven executed there on
          September 8, 1980, courtesy of the Bahá'i Office of Public
          Affairs; pp. 24—25, photograph of Bahá'I witnesses (Mitchell,
          Kazemzadeh, Nelson, Nourani) at the Congressional hearing,
          by David Ogron/The BahJ'I; p. 34, photograph of
          Mulla Falsafi attacking the Bah 'I National Center in -Tehran
          in 1955, courtesy of the Bah 'i Office of Public Affairs.
          -
          
        
          
          —
          I
          
        

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