The seven former members of the Baha’i leadership are still unjustly behind bars, and have been for well over a year – more than 16 months. Governments, civil society, and prominent people in many countries have called for the unconditional release of these seven men and women, who are innocent of all wrongdoing. They are being denied their freedom due to blatant religious persecution.
However, today, we are compelled to bring to the attention of the Council a new and even more callous stratagem, in which the city of Semnan is the site of a covert experiment to eliminate the Baha’i community across Iran. The methodology involves systematic implementation of the various measures outlined in the government’s 1991 secret memorandum, together with intensive efforts to incite the Iranian people to hate and distrust the Baha’is. The objective is to terrorize and repeatedly harass them with such severity that they will see no option but to leave the city, if not Iran itself. The Baha’is have not left Semnan, however, which forebodes further intensification in the persecution against the beleaguered community.
As you will recall, the 1991 secret memorandum – revealed and published by the UN Special Representative on Iran at the time (1) – explicitly calls for Iran’s Baha’is to be treated in such a way “that their progress and development are blocked.” It reveals the government’s intent to ensure that Iranian Baha’is remain uneducated, able to exist only at subsistence level, and fearful that even the smallest infraction will mean imprisonment or worse.
Incitement to hatred in incendiary sermons and media, terrorization and endless harassment, arson and vandalism, the ostracizing of school children, systematic efforts to deny access to work and a decent living, arbitrary arrests, detentions and interrogations – all this has become the lot of the Baha’is of Semnan, and all of these human rights violations are solely based on religious intolerance.
The situation in Semnan and the case of the “Tehran seven” are symbolic of a much larger issue, as these abuses reflect the government’s sharply increased persecution of the entire Baha’i community: 300,000 people, who constitute the largest religious minority in Iran.
Irrefutable evidence shows that in Iran human rights are disregarded not only for Baha’is, but also for those who defend the rights of minorities and women, for trade unionists, journalists, students, peaceful demonstrators and others.
We call upon the High Commissioner and the international community to state once again, in the strongest terms, their demand that all of these violations cease.