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Despite all the campaigns waged in their behalf, millions of innocent people
in dozens of countries are still persecuted and sometimes killed because of their
politics, skin color, ethnic background, class origin or religious beliefs. In
revolutionary Iran, the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini has elevated the medieval
witch hunt to a national priority. This pitiless effort aims to “cleanse” the
Islamic state of the Baha'is, adherents of a peace-loving minority religion, solely
because they refuse to renounce their faith.
B FxRGUS M. BORDEWICH
wo or MY BROTHERS and my
brother-in-law were taken
away in the night and killed
by the Ayatollah's executioners,”
says an elderly doctor. “The Pasdars
[ revolutionary guards] stripped me
of my home, my car, my property,
and shut down my medical prac-
tice. When they told my nephew
that every member of the family,
from eight to eighty, was to be
killed, I decided to flee.”
The old man pauses for a mo-
ment, choosing his words. “And yet
we are not against the Iranians or
Khomeini,” he finally says. “We
will never take vengeance on any-
one. All we want is to be left in
peace t 2 worship as we choose.”
The doctor's experience is typi-
cal of the unremitting terror that
has engulfed the followers of the
•Baha'j faith since Shi'ite Moslem
fanatics seized power in Iran in
‘979. The Khomeini regime has
mounted a steady campaign of
persecution against the Baha'is_
killing some 2oo, imprisoning and
torturing hundreds more, and forc-
ing tens of thousands into exile.
“Instruments of Satan.” Since
their founding in the x 9 th century
by a Persian prophet whom they
call Baha'u'llah, or Glory of God,
the Baha'is have been regarded by
their countrymen as heretics from
Islam. But today's Shi'ite radicals
have added a new resentment: to
6 ,
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BP000266
THEIR CRJME” IS FAITH
them, the generally well-educated
and progress-minded Baha'is sym-
bolize the late Shah's moderniza-
tion attempts, which Khomeini's
followers are determined to re-
verse. In the words of one powerful
religious judge, ‘ The Iranian na-
tion cannot tolerate the perverted
Baha'is, who are instruments of
Satan and followers of the devil
and of the superpowers and their
agents.”
Such sordid accusations are part
of the awful nightmare land of
today's Iran, where contempt is
virtue, cruelty is devotion and igno-
rance is wisdom. The 250,000 or
so Baha'is who remain in Iran
are pacifists by creed—like Ma-
hatma Gandhi, they believe that
violence begets only more vio-
lence—and they submit to their
fate with the calm surrender of
Christian martyrs.
The Baha'is, who number some
four million in i66 countries, prac-
tice a gentle faith that emphasizes
the unity of religions, nations and
races, and considers “service to
mankind” a form of worship. Much
in their can on is common to all the
great religions—including Islam.
Baha'is are prohibited by their
religion from participating in poli-
tics, and also believe in strict obedi-
ence to the laws of any country in
which they live. Indeed, even while
their families are being tormented
by the authorities, Baha'i draft-
ees—despite their faith's pacifism—
are serving in Iran's war against
Iraq.
62
No fewer than 40,000 of the
300,000 Baha'is who lived in Iran
before the revolution have been
forced to flee. For those who re-
main—stripped of their jobs, homes
and dignity—daily life is an on-
going agony of fear and death. A
well-known Baha'i doctor, who for
decades had treated Baha'is and
Moslems alike, was beaten to death
by a fanatical mob in his own Tehe-
ran clinic. A 75-year-old bazaar
merchant was murdered when he
refused to recant his beliefs.
Young Baha'i girls have been
abducted and forced to become
Moslems. Wives have been jailed
when they attempted to visit their
imprisoned husbands. Throughout
Iran, Baha'i children have been or-
dered out of the schools and uni-
versities. And the holiest Baha'i
shrines have been obliterated.
Many Baha'is are dragged away
in the middle of the night. “When
the Pasdars came for my father,” a
25-year-old woman recalls, “we ex-
pected he'd be interrogated and
released. After seven months they
finally let us see him. He had been
tortured and his legs were drag-.
ging, but he tried not to show it. He
told us that he was happy because
he was serving our religion. Then
one day they just killed him. They
never even told us what he was
charged with.”
Trials, when they take place at
all, are a travesty. “A friend of mine
was in the courtroom only ten min-
utes,” says one Baha'i refugee from
Shiraz. “The judge, a mullah [ reli-
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‘ 19 4 Là uid PperCpo , ,on
gious teacher}, asked her if she was
a Baha'i. ‘Yes,' she replied. He
asked if she would become a Mos-
1cm. She answered ‘No.' ‘Then the
Koran says you must be executed,'
the mullah said. She was hanged
instantly.”
Unlike Christianity, Judaism,
and Zoroastrianism (another Per-
sian religion), the Baha'i faith was
never recognized as a separate reli-
gion by the constitution of Iran,
where there is a mandatory death
penalty for renouncing Islam. “The
fundamentalist mullahs and their
followers feel a religious duty to
eliminate the Baha'is,” explains a
European diplomat with long ex-
perience in Iran. “They ask the
Baha'is to convert. If the Baha'is
refuse, then, in the mullahs' eyes,
they are guilty of a religious crime
and have to be executed.”
Price of a Purge. Repression has
been particularly vicious in the
countryside. Frenzied mobs led by
rabble-rousing mullahs roam from
town to town to harass Baha'is. In
one desert hamlet, an elderly Baha'i
farmer and his wife were burned
alive. Even death is no refuge. In
the city of Shiraz, Shi'ite mobs
pulled Baha'i corpses out of their
graves in search of jewelry.
In the major cities, the persecu-
tion is led by the Pasdars and by the
revolutionary committees, which
have been set up in every workplace
to investigate employees' beliefs
and to purge the Baha'is and others
with whom they disagree. Those
who don't recant are fired. Recent
64
reports from Teheran indicate that
‘more than io,ooo Baha'is have been
arbitrarily dismissed, had their
pensions canceled or been ordered
to repay the salaries they earned
before being fired.
Nowhere is the government's
determination to wipe out the Ba-
ha'is clearer than in its systematic
suppression of the Baha'is' Nation-
al Spiritual Assembly, the body
responsible for managing the com-
munity's religious affairs in Iran.
From the start, Baha'i community
workers had been frequent victims
of Shi'ite zealots; then, in 1980, the
nine members of the Baha'i Assem-
bly were arrested, and disappeared
without a trace. In 198 1 eight of
the nine new assembly members
were summarily executed (one
65
was “lucky” to be. out ick). Un-
daunted, the Baha'is elected yet
another new assembly. In August
1983 the Iranian government de-
clared participation in any Baha'i
administrative activity a crime.
Honoring their obedience to local
laws, the Baha'is disbanded all
their remaining institutions in
Iran. But the killings and persecu-
tions have continued.
Life on the Run. Every tale told
by Baha'is I interviewed in Austria,
Switzerland, Canada and the Unit-
ed States is a study in tragedy. The
story of Mariam and Daryoush,*
both active in Baha'i community
affairs, is typical. Mariam is an
articulate university graduate in
‘Names have been changed to protect rda-
tives in fran.
THEIR ‘CPJME” IS FAITH
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THEIR “CRIME” IS FAITH
he late 205. Expelled from her job
for her beliefs, she began tending
Baha'i children barred from gov-
ernment schools. Meanwhile, the
• Pasdars were hunting Daryoush,
her husband, who owned a small
• factory. The Pasdars were looking
for Daryoush because they knew
him to be a counselor to Ba! a'i
youth, an “official” in government
eyes. The “subversive” texts he
taught were documents of various
world religions, including the Bi-
ble—and the Koran.
Finally, Daryoush was forced to
go underground, and Mariam lived
for the next several months at her
mother's home. “One night, eight
Pasdars burst in the door and de-
manded my husband,” Mariarn
says. “Not finding him, they
dragged me off to prison and inter-
rogated me eight hours a day. They .
told me that if I renounced my
religion everything would be all
• right. But how can you deny some-
• thing you believe in?”
Released after 14 days, Mariam
discovered that her home, car and
bank accounts had been confiscated
along with those of her parents.
Daryoush remained on the run for
nearly eight months. In the end, the
couple escaped to Canada.
The largest group of Baha'i refu-
gees, about 7500, has settled in the,
United States. Many have also been
accepted by Canada, Australia, the
Scandinavian countries and a few
Latin American states. But since
the early 198os, the outflow has
been reduced to a mere trickle. If a
Baha'i tries to leave legally, his
passport is lifted and he is jailed.
For those who wish to escape, there
is almost no alternative to the har-
rowing trek across the desei t to
Pakistan or ‘through the rugged
mountains to Turkey.
Power of Faith. Many Baha'is
arrive at the border without money,
friends or protection. The iooo or
so Baha'i refugees in Pakistan have
been receiving about $50 a month
per person from the United Na-
tions High Commission on Refu-
gees, but a number of them have
been waiting a year to be accepted
by a third country. Several hundred
more are waiting in Turkey for
permission to emigrate.
Because the Baha'is won't strike
back at the regime, states Gerald
Knight, a British Baha'i who serves
as the faith's U.N. representative
for human rights in New York, the
only hope for these gentle people is
in diplomacy and international pro-
test. Since the persecutions began,
quiet representations have been
made to the Iranian government by
the U.N. Secretary General. More-
over, resolutions condemning per-
secution of the Baha'is have been
adopted by the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights, the European
Parliament, the U.S. Congress, and
the parliaments of Australia, Cana-
da, West Germany and other coun-
tries. International efforts have so
far, at best, only slowed the pace of
the persecution.
For the moment the Baha'is are
hopefully watching the result of
67
the May 25, 1984, decision of the
U.N.'s Economic and Social Coun-
cil to appoint a special representa-
tive “to make a thorough study of
the human-rights situation” in
Iran, and to report to the Human
Rights Commission. Much, of
course, depends on the investigator,
yet to be named, and on the Iranian
response.
In Iran, meanwhile, the stage
remains set for genocide. The
threat of total extermination will
hang over the Baha'is as long as
fanatic religious leaders, with their
totalitarianism of hate and bigotry,
remain in power. If Iran were to
lose its war with Iraq, or if its
economy were finally to collapse,
it could scarcely be surprising if
the radical mullahs looked to the
Baha'is as scapegoats and put in-
to effect the “final solution” that
they seem to have had in mind all
along.
The Baha'is pray that the world
will come to their aid, by continu-
ing to accept Baha'i refugees and by
putting economic and diplomatic
pressure on Iran. To endure the
nearly unendurable daily life inside
Iran, however, they will look ulti-
mately to their own faith.
“We arc not bitter,” Gerald
Knight says, with the sense of self-
assurance and conviction that rises
through the words of nearly all
Baha'is. “We don't hate the people
who are killing our fellow Baha'is.
Rather, we take our example from
the people who are being killed—
they are filled with love for their
tormentors. In them we see the
power of God.”
Letter Perfect
c4 WELL-MEANING CUSTOMER of the famed Neiman-Marcus department
store was prompted to send Stanley Marcus this letter:
Dear Mr. Marcus:
I have been receiving beautiful and expensive brochures from you
at regular intervals. It occurs to me that you might divert a little of
the fortune you must be spending for this advertising matter to raise
the salaries of your more faithful employees. For instance, there's an
unassuming, plainly dressed little man on the second floor who
always treats me with extreme courtesy when I visit your store and
generally persuades me to buy something I don't really want. Why
don't you pay him a little more? He looks as though he could use it.
Yours truly, Mrs. WS
By return mail came Marcus's reply:
Dear Madam:
Your letter impressed us so deeply that we called a directors'
meeting immediately, and thanks solely to your own solicitude,
voted my father a $ao-a-week raise.
Yours truly, Stanley Marcus.
—Bcnnett Ccrf n Saturday Review
THEIR “CRIME” IS FAITH
68
