109. Arrest of the Members of the Friends in Iran

109

Arrest of the Members of the Friends in Iran

14 May 2008

To selected National Spiritual Assemblies

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

109.1 The Universal House of Justice has directed us to convey to you the gravely distressing news just now received that the members of the Friends in Iran—the group that coordinates the activities of the Bahá’í community in the absence of a National Spiritual Assembly in the Cradle of the Faith—have been summarily and unjustly arrested by the Iranian authorities in raids conducted in the early hours of this morning, 14 May 2008. Details are as follows.

109.2 Officers of the Intelligence Ministry in Tehran entered the homes of six of the seven members of the Friends in Iran, whereupon they conducted extensive searches, following which all six were arrested and brought to the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. These individuals—Mrs. Faríbá Kamálábádí [Fariba Kamalabadi], Mr. Jamálu’d-Dín Khánjání [Jamaloddin Khanjani], Mr. ‘Afíf Na‘ímí [Afif Naeimi], Mr. Sa‘íd Riḍá’í [Saeid Rezaie], Mr. Bihrúz Tavakkulí [Behrouz Tavakkoli], and Mr. Vaḥíd Tízfahm [Vahid Tizfahm]—now join the seventh member of the group, Mrs. Mahvash Thábit [Mahvash Sabet], resident of Tehran and Secretary of the Friends in Iran, who has been held in custody since 5 March 2008 when she was summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer questions related to the burial of an individual in the Bahá’í cemetery in that city. Contrary to recent indications that Mrs. Thábit would be released sometime soon, the events that have transpired today are yet another indication of the government’s determination to extinguish the Bahá’í community in the land of its birth.

109.3 As you are aware, such dire action on the part of the government has not been witnessed since the heart-rending events in 1980 and 1981, when all nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of Iran were abducted on 21 August 1980 and disappeared without a trace, following which the reconstituted National Assembly was again ravaged by the execution of eight of its members on 27 December 1981.

109.4 The members of the peace-loving, non-violent Bahá’í community of Iran—the country’s largest religious minority—have been made more vulnerable through this wholly unwarranted action….

With** **loving Bahá’í greetings,

Department of the Secretariat