Geneva, Oct. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A group of 18 United Nations Special Rapporteurs and UN Working Group experts have released a joint letter of allegations(link is external) rebuking the Islamic Republic of Iran for the recent rise in attacks against Baha’i women. Women from Iran’s Baha’i community face intersectional persecution as both women and as Baha’is.

“We express serious concern at what appears to be an increase in systematic targeting of Iranian women belonging to the Baha’i religious minority throughout the country,” the UN experts said in their statement, “including through arrests, summoning for interrogation, enforced disappearance, raids on their homes, confiscation of their personal belongings, limitations on their freedom of movement as well as prolonged, consecutive deprivations of liberty.”

This powerful statement was further confirmed this week with the sentencing of 10 Baha’i women in Isfahan to a combined total of 90 years in prison.

In late July, the 18 experts sent a letter to the Iranian government, detailing abuses of the rights of Baha’i women in the country and seeking a response from the authorities. Iranian officials were given 60 days to respond before the communication would be made public. No reply was received. The experts recently made public their letter on Iran’s continued persecution of the Baha’i community.

UN Special Rapporteurs, and members of UN Working Groups, are independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate, monitor, and report on specific human rights violations worldwide. The experts hold mandates on the rights of women and girls, freedom of religion or belief, peaceful assembly, education, freedom of opinion and expression, and many others, as well as country-specific mandates on states of special concern such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Baha’i women comprise two-thirds of all Baha’is persecuted in Iran at the present time, including through arbitrary detention, denial of education, home raids, separation from families, legal summonses, trials on baseless criminal charges and years of unjust imprisonment.

The statistic also underscores the disproportionate impact of persecution on Baha’i women in the country.

“When Baha’i women are attacked, entire families feel the pain of this injustice,” said Simin Fahandej, Representative of the Baha’i International Community (BIC) to the United Nations in Geneva. “We have seen this again just this week, with the cruel and totally unjust sentencing of 10 innocent Baha’i women, each to five or 10 years in prison. The children of some of these women, like so many others, will now be torn from their mothers. Wives, daughters and sisters are separated from their loved ones for no reason other than their faith.”

“Since the 2022 uprising in Iran, the Islamic Republic has pursued a crackdown, in particular on women,” Ms. Fahandej added. “Baha’i women, who already face persecution as Baha’is, including decades of arbitrary arrests, imprisonments, denial of education and work in the public sector, as well as other pressures, are affected even more by discriminatory policies that target them on account of both their gender and their faith. And sentencing these latest 10 women to prison, just for their beliefs, clearly demonstrates the urgent reality of the UN experts’ concerns.”

“These 18 UN experts, each representing the collective conscience of the entirety of humanity in specific areas, have now together called upon the Iranian government to end its abuses of Baha’i women, and indeed all Baha’is. This exceptional action is a powerful signal to the Iranian authorities that they can no longer hide their despicable actions against Baha’is behind hateful propaganda and disinformation about the community. Today it has become evident to the global community that the Baha’is in Iran are persecuted for one reason alone: their beliefs,” Ms. Fahandej said, “and this statement by the 18 outstanding individuals, each chosen by the UN as experts in Human Rights, is a testament to this reality.”

Urging immediate action on the Iranian government, the UN experts said that all Baha’i women should be released without delay, prisoners should be granted immediate and full medical care, and mechanisms should be created to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses against Baha’i women accountable.

The experts also said they were “further concerned about the continued criminalization of freedom of religion or belief, freedom of opinion and expression and the right to take part in cultural life of members of the Baha’i religious minority by the Iranian authorities.”

“The systematic nature of these violations represents a continuous pattern of targeted discrimination and persecution of this community and its members based on their religious affiliation and identity,” the UN experts added. “We are also concerned that the group of individuals affected face intersectional persecution: as women and as members of the Baha’i religious minority. Further, we express concern about the notable chilling effect of the allegations described on other members of the Baha’i religious minority and the exercise of their human rights and freedoms.”

The landmark intervention follows two reports by the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, established to investigate human rights violations against the Baha’is in the aftermath of the 2022 uprising, which gave extensive details on the impact of the government crackdown on Baha’i women and the wider Baha’i community. The reports called the Baha’is the “most persecuted religious minority in the Islamic Republic of Iran” and added that, since the protests, there has been a surge in hate speech against the Baha’is and a rise in the persecution of Baha’i women.

The 45-year persecution of the Baha’is by the Islamic Republic of Iran was also detailed in an April 2024 report by Human Rights Watch, “The Boot on My Neck(link is external),” which determined that the treatment of the Baha’is by the Iranian government constitutes the crime against humanity of persecution.

Baha’i women are exposed to the same pressures as all women in Iran, but additionally, to the denial of access to education and public employment, and are arrested and imprisoned for adhering to the Baha’i Faith.

“No human being should ever be subject to persecution because of their gender, belief, race, or ethnicity,” Ms. Fahandej said. “Empowering women makes a society more peaceful, stable and prosperous, and it is the right thing to do. But sadly, in Iran, not only are women pressured from every side, but those belonging to religious minorities such as the Baha’is face double discrimination, adding to the social and economic pressures they and their families face. Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, started his term with promises of ‘equality for all.’ He must now demonstrate that his words extend also to the Baha’is—who have tolerated every gross violation of human rights imaginable and who deserve to live as equal citizens in their own country.”

Background

• In the latest development affecting Baha’i women in Iran, on 21 October, 10 Baha’i women in Isfahan were sentenced to a combined total of 90 years in prison, huge fines, and property confiscations, travel bans, and other restrictions.
  • The women, Neda Badakhsh, Arezou Sobhanian, Yeganeh Rouhbakhsh, Mojgan Shahrezaie, Parastou Hakim, Yeganeh Agahi, Bahareh Lotfi, Shana Shoghifar, Negin Khademi, and Neda Emadi, were convicted of charges including “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and “participation in deviant educational activities contrary to Islamic Sharia law.” These activities were related to organizing English, painting, music, and yoga classes, as well as nature trips for Iranian and Afghan children and teenagers.
  • Ten women from Isfahan, mostly in their twenties and thirties, were arrested and put on trial. Last month the women appeared before a Revolutionary Court. The charges arise from private complaints secured by government agents who coerced neighbors of the women with threatening phone calls and court summonses. 
  • The sentences were handed down under Article 500 bis of Iran’s Penal Code, which essentially criminalizes freedom of conscience in religious belief.
  • They were collectively sentenced to 90 years of imprisonment, 900 million tomans in fines (USD 16,000), confiscation of assets for the state, a travel ban, and prohibition from using social media.
  • The court has announced that one-third of the 10-year prison sentences for Yeganeh Agahi, Negin Khademi, and Yeganeh Rouhbakhsh have been suspended.
  • Additionally, half of the 10-year prison sentences for Neda Badakhsh, Parastou Hakim, Arezou Sobhanian, Mojgan Shahrezaie, and Shana Shoghifar, as well as four years of the five-year prison sentences for Neda Emadi and Bahareh Lotfi, have also been suspended.
•  During March and April 2024, at least 72 of 93 Baha’is summoned to court or prison, or more than three-quarters, were women. Recent months have seen even a further rise in the attacks against Baha’i women.
• A mother in Shiraz was arrested in the presence of her two-year-old child. A second mother of a four-year-old, in Tabriz, was arrested despite her father’s hospitalization in intensive care. Two other women, meanwhile, one in Fardis and another in Urmia, were arrested by intelligence agents; the belongings of one were seized. Additionally, a Baha’i woman and her husband from Gorgan were arrested at their home by 10 agents from the Ministry of Intelligence and have been detained in an unknown location.
• Twenty-six Baha’is, 16 of them women, received sentences totaling 126 years in prison, signaling the continued targeting of women across the Baha’i community.
• Six more Baha’i women from Isfahan were detained for a month, facing harsh conditions in the quarantine ward of Dolat Abad prison. Deliberate delays in access to medical care or warm water, denial of information about the reasons for their arrests or the charges against them, showcase the Iranian government’s harsh new tactics against the Baha’i community.
• The Iranian government’s oppressive measures against the Baha’is are rooted in the 1991 “Baha’i Question” memorandum, signed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which called for the “progress and development” of the Bahá’í community to be “blocked.”. Measures against the Baha’is were further entrenched through additional official government policy documents targeting the Baha’is which have come to light, in 2006, 2007 and 2020, underscoring a long-standing effort to suppress the Baha’i community.
• The April 2024  Human Rights Watch report, “The Boot on My Neck: Iranian Authorities’ Crime of Persecution Against Baha’is in Iran(link is external),” which determined that the Iranian government’s 45-year systematic repression of the Baha’is amounted to the crime against humanity of persecution under international criminal law, was widely noted in the media.
• The joint UN experts’ statement follows the international commemoration of the #OurStoryIsOne campaign, launched by the BIC in 2023 and continued into 2024, to honor the 40th anniversary of the execution of 10 Baha’i women in 1983, in Shiraz, Iran, and to spotlight ongoing gender-based violence and religious persecution in Iran.
• The letter by the UN Special Rapporteurs and working group experts, addressed to the Islamic Republic of Iran, was signed by Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; Aua Baldé, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, of a five-member working group; Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, of a five-member working group; Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the right to education; Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran; Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences.

Rachel Wolfe
U.S. Baha'i Office of Public Affairs
202-938-1145
[email protected]

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