U.N. Probe Urged In Bahai Death Claims

          
          • Wed., July 13. 1983 ** i ranriso
          U.N .. P bC'! d
          b P :t*' C dms
          Washington
          Elie Wiesel, chairman of
          the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
          Council, said yesterday that
          the U.N. Human Rights Corn-
          mission should investigate
          the reported execution and
          imprisonment of members of
          the Bahaf faith inlran.
          “We all vowed after the Nazi•
          outrages — never again. Now is the
          time to act on that vow,” Wiesel
          said In a statement issued after a
          report from the Bahai World Cen-
          ter in Haifa, Israel, that 17 Bahai
          men, women and children had been
          executed within the past month.
          A spokesman for the religious
          group said 142 Bahais have been
          executed in Iran since Ayatollah
          Ruhollah Khomeini's fundamental-
          ist Islamic regime took power in -
          - 1979, and 14 others are missing and
          presumed dead.
          The Bahai faith, an offshoot of
          Islam, was founded in 1849 and
          claims 400,000 members in Iran. Its
          adherents believe in the unity of
          mankind, equality of the sexes, and
          the right.of all religions to exist.
          “I am particularly troubled
          that echoes of the Nazi cruelties are
          again being heard in our world,”
          Wiesel said. is especially dis-
          tressing that this occurs in a land
          ruled by representatives of one of
          the world's great religions — Is-
          lam.”
          • Associated Press
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