For Iran’s Hard-Liners, Contact with Baha’is Means Guilt by Association

Authorities’ response to a recent meeting highlighted the extreme persecution of an unrecognized religious group.

Iranian hard-liners were quick to condemn a meeting between two friends, Faezeh Hashemi and Fariba Kamalabadi, this month in Tehran. Although Hashemi’s father, former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is considered a moderate, he too publicly chastised her for meeting with a “heretic.” Such is the plight of Baha’is, Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority.

Last week marked the eighth anniversary of the imprisonment of Kamalabadi and six other leaders of the Baha’i faith in Iran. They are serving prison sentences of up to 20 years after being convicted of “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities, and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” It is estimated that about 80 Baha’is are currently in prison due to their religious beliefs.

The friendship between Hashemi and Kamalabadi began more than three years ago when they shared a jail cell; Hashemi was serving a prison sentence for “spreading propaganda against the system.” Since meeting with Kamalabadi, Hashemi has been criticized by many of Iran’s clerics and judges, in addition to her father, and has been threatened with legal action because of the status of Baha’is in Iran.

The regime has a long and reprehensible history of cracking down on members of the Baha’i faith, which—unlike Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Judaism—is not recognized in the Islamic Republic’s constitution. The country’s Baha’is number around 300,000. Their religion is monotheistic and apolitical, yet they are called heretics and pagans, and because the international Baha’i community’s headquarters is located in Haifa, Israel, some have even been accused of serving a “Zionist conspiracy” and spying for Israel.

The persecution of Baha’is has taken many forms. Baha’is are required to register with the police. They have been victims of murder—roughly 200 were killed or disappeared in the early 1980s. They have also faced property seizures and imprisonment by the regime. They are barred from working in the public sector and from receiving a university education unless they renounce their faith. Baha’is are forbidden from worshipping and have had their cemeteries destroyed. Baha’i children encounter violence and harassment in schools, and Baha’i marriages are not recognized by the state. According the U.S. State Department’s most recent report on religious freedom in Iran, “Baha’i blood can be spilled with impunity, and Baha’i families are not entitled to restitution.”

Conditions for Baha’is have not improved under President Hassan Rouhani, who is considered a moderate reformer and has promised to increase social freedoms within Iran. Since signing the international agreement on its nuclear program, Iran has been keen to reenter global markets to alleviate economic hardship at home, and it has slowly been let in from the cold after years of diplomatic isolation. However, abiding by the nuclear deal does not require the international community to shirk its duty to press the regime on human rights abuses.

Much attention has been focused—and rightly so—on the authorities’ attempts to snuff out political dissent, their repression of women, and their hostility toward independent media. Given the variety of other abuses, it is important that the persecution of the Baha’is not be overlooked. Their situation is especially emblematic of the regime’s habitual demonization of certain groups in order to maintain its own questionable legitimacy, and illuminates the hypocrisy of Iran’s leaders, who have a strong interest in religious freedom and tolerance when it comes to Shiite minorities in other countries.

Indeed, the basic unfairness of Bahai’s’ treatment, underscored by the hard-line reaction to Hashemi’s meeting, has reportedly prompted some Iranians to come to their defense. Recognition of the fundamental rights of this maligned minority would be an important step toward freedom and justice for all Iranians.