The incarceration of the seven Baha'i leaders is the latest development in a deliberate policy of the Iranian government to suffocate the Baha'i community. Systematic plans were drawn up in 1991 - at the request of the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the then President Rafsanjani - and set out in a memorandum approved and signed by Ayatollah Khamenei.