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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. KIT BIGELOW, DIRECTOR OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHA’IS OF THE UNITED STATES
before the
CONGRESSIONAL IRAN WORKING GROUP, MARCH 13, 2008
My name is Kit Bigelow, director of external affairs for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States. We would like to thank the Congressional Iran Working Group for inviting us to testify about the situation of the Baha’i community in Iran.
Some 300,000 Baha’is live in Iran, making the Baha’i Faith the country’s largest religious minority. Baha’is have been targets of persecution in Iran since the religion began there in the mid-nineteenth century. More than 200 Baha’is were killed between 1978 and 1998, the majority by execution, and thousands more were imprisoned.
The Iranian government regards Baha’is as apostates and “unprotected infidels.” They have no legal rights, and are not permitted to elect the leaders of their community.
The elimination of the Baha’i community is explicit government policy. A secret Iranian Government document made public by the U.N. Human Rights Commission outlined the official strategy to suppress the Bahá'í community. Written by the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council, approved by president Rafsanjani, and signed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, this February 1991 document set forth specific guidelines for dealing with Bahá'ís so that “their progress and development are blocked.”
During the past few years, the situation of the Iranian Baha’is has deteriorated significantly. In November 2004, they wrote a letter to President Mohammad Khatami in which they requested that their civil and human rights be respected. Since that letter was distributed, Baha’is throughout the country have been arrested and detained for varying periods of time. There has been an increase in arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, the destruction of historic religious sites, defamation campaigns in government-sponsored media, and other pressures of a type not experienced since the years immediately following the Islamic Revolution. In 2005, the Iranian Government initiated a new wave of assaults, home raids, harassment and detentions.
Baha’is in Iran are systematically denied jobs, pensions and the right to inherit property. More than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university posts since the Islamic Revolution. Baha’i cemeteries, holy places and community properties were seized soon after the Revolution. In 2007, Baha’i cemeteries were destroyed by earthmoving equipment in Yazd, and bulldozed outside of Najafabad. A draft Islamic penal code recently introduced in the Majlis would require the death penalty for apostasy.
Three Baha’is have been imprisoned in Shiraz since November 2007 by the Ministry of Information after having each been sentenced to a total of four years’ imprisonment. An Iranian judiciary spokesman told reporters that they had been sentenced “for propaganda against the regime.” They were among 54 Baha’is, most of them in their teens and twenties, who were arrested in Shiraz in May 2006 while engaged in humanitarian service with underprivileged children. Ten Baha’is are currently prison. One hundred forty-five Baha’is who had been arrested and are out on bail are awaiting trial or an appeal hearing. Among the charges brought against them is “creating anxiety in the minds of the public and those of the Iranian officials.”
Two of the most ominous signs of the increased persecution are widespread government identification and monitoring of all Baha’is, and intensification of the implementation of the 1991 government strategy.
In March, 2006, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief revealed the existence of a confidential letter from the Command Headquarters of Iran’s Armed Forces. Supreme Leader Khamenei instructed the Command Headquarters to identify persons who adhere to the Baha’i Faith and to monitor their activities. The letter ordered the Ministry of Information, the Revolutionary Guard and the Police Force to collect, in a highly confidential manner, any and all information about members of the Baha’i Faith.
This monitoring is widespread. A letter from the Ministry of the Interior, in August 2006, requested provincial officials throughout the country to “cautiously and carefully monitor and manage” all Baha’i social activities. The Iranian Association of Chambers of Commerce reportedly is compiling a list of Baha’is in every type of trade and employment. In May 2006, the Trades, Production, and Technical Services Society of Kermanshah wrote to the Union of Battery Manufacturers to request “a list of the names of those who belong to the Baha’i sect and are under the jurisdiction of your union.”
The 1991 government memorandum also mandated that Baha’is be denied access to higher education. It stated, “They must be expelled from universities, either in the admissions process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Baha’is.”
A letter from an Iranian university, Payame Noor, stated that it is Iranian government policy to prevent Baha’is, on account of their religion, from enrolling in universities and that they must be expelled if discovered to have enrolled. A confidential letter issued in 2006 by the director general of the Central Security Office of Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology instructed eighty-one Iranian universities to expel any student who is discovered to be a Baha’i.
Young Baha’is in primary and secondary schools throughout Iran are being subjected to vilification by their teachers and school administrators, and many are being expelled after they identify themselves as Baha’is, when they try to defend the Faith against utterly unfounded accusations by their teachers, or when they respectfully attempt to correct gross misrepresentations of the Faith’s history in the textbooks they must study. It has also been reported that Baha’is in secondary schools are to be given grades sufficient to graduate but too low to allow entrance to universities.
The 1991 government memorandum also called for Baha’is to be stunted economically. The memorandum stated: “Deny them employment if they identify themselves as Baha’is…. Deny them any position of influence…” In April 2007, the Public Intelligence and Security Force called for Baha’is to be denied business licenses in more than 25 industries and the means to obtain anything other than “an ordinary livelihood.”
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the attention of the international community has been essential to the protection of Iranian Baha’is. We are deeply grateful when the United States and other governments speak out about their persecution. Several strong statements have been made this year. Last month, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom hosted a hearing on Iran, at which the Commission highlighted human rights abuses against various religious minorities, including the Baha’is. In January, the State Department called for the release of the three young prisoners in Shiraz, along with three Amir Kabir University students and all other individuals being held without due process and a fair trial.
In particular, we wish to express our gratitude to Congressmen Kirk and Andrews for introducing in February House Resolution 1008, the tenth Congressional resolution on the Iranian Baha’is. We hope Congress will continue to voice its concern and will work with Parliamentarians worldwide for the religious freedom of all people. The Baha’is of the U.S. thank Congress for affirming the right of the long-suffering Iranian Baha’is to practice freely their religion. |
