190. Document Highlighting Effort by the Iranian Government to Intensify Its Oppression of Bahá’ís in Semnan and Other Cities

190

Document Highlighting Effort by the Iranian Government to Intensify

**Its Oppression of Bahá’ís in Semnan and Other Cities **

7 August 2012

Selected National Spiritual Assemblies

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

190.1 The Universal House of Justice has directed us to share with you for your urgent attention the enclosed document, which highlights in some detail a concerted effort being pursued by the government in Iran to intensify its oppression of the Bahá’ís in Semnan and in a number of other cities, including Abadeh, Aligudarz, Bukan, Isfahan, Ivel, Khorramabad, Laljin, Mashhad, Parsabad, Rafsanjan, Ravansar, and Shiraz. The methods being employed by the authorities in Semnan are outlined below.

190.2 As you are aware, a conspicuous component of the persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran has been the effort to rouse local populations against Bahá’ís wherever they reside, often conducted from the local pulpits as an adjunct to the ongoing publication of virulent propaganda against the Faith in the government-controlled national mass media. The recent special report of the Bahá’í International Community, titled Inciting Hatred: Iran’s Media Campaign to Demonize Bahá’ís, provides a detailed survey of this nationwide undertaking for the period from December 2009 to May 2011. It includes events in Semnan, where in 2008 and 2009 a series of anti-Bahá’í public seminars and rallies was held at which the local citizenry was urged to eschew associating with Bahá’ís, to refrain from conducting business with them, and to expel them from the town. One such event, held in late 2008, began with two short anti-Bahá’í videos misrepresenting the activities and intentions of “the perverse Bahaist sect” and was introduced by the head of the Kánún-í Rahpúyán-í Visál²⁹ [Kanoun-e Rahpouyan-e Vesal], Ḥujjatu’l-Islám Siyyid Muḥammad Anjavínizhád [Hojjatu’l-Islam Seyyed Muhammad Anjavinizhad], who was brought to Semnan from his home in Shiraz for the seminar. During 2009, incendiary sermons were also preached against Bahá’ís by the local clergy, and local agents of the Ministry of Intelligence surreptitiously engaged in defaming the believers in a further attempt to isolate them from their fellow citizens.

190.3 Alongside the dissemination of propaganda against the Faith, mounting evidence of an orchestrated effort, in the past three years, by the government of Iran to vastly escalate the persecution of Bahá’ís has led the Bahá’í International Community to voice concern over this unacceptable mistreatment of the believers. In Semnan, a range of coordinated acts of persecution are being carried out simultaneously by various ministries, departments, and offices of the government, usually also involving the clergy. These include coercing the Bahá’ís to cease holding their community gatherings; seeking to prevent them from interacting with Muslim friends, colleagues, and neighbors; engaging in far-reaching efforts to obstruct the Bahá’ís from earning a livelihood; attacking Bahá’í-owned properties; attempting to destroy the Bahá’í cemetery and to prevent the Bahá’ís from burying their dead there; conducting summary raids on Bahá’í homes; allowing the cruel treatment of Bahá’í schoolchildren by their teachers, school administrators, and clerics; and subjecting Bahá’ís to repeated summoning for interrogation and revolving arrests. In addition, Bahá’ís are under constant and close surveillance, such that they are followed everywhere by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, who then appear at their homes or summon them for questioning about their interactions with non-Bahá’ís; so frequently is this occurring that young Bahá’í children have come to fear that a knock on the door will mean the arrest of their parents. The objective of this intensification appears to be to terrorize and harass Bahá’ís with a view to determine how best to effect the government’s official policy to eliminate the Bahá’í community as a viable entity in Iran. Bahá’ís are often told by government officials that the authorities want them out of the country altogether. The Bahá’ís of Semnan have been placed in a crucible in which the authorities are assaying their approach to “the Bahá’í question”.

190.4 It is not known why the Bahá’í community of Semnan has been singled out for such severe treatment, but it is perhaps significant that this is the home district of Mr. Jamálu’d-Dín Khánjání [Jamaloddin Khanjani], one of the former members of the Yárán, and that many members of his family live there. The Ministry of Intelligence has long been mistaken in regarding Mr. Khánjání as somehow holding a position of power and authority over the Bahá’í community of Iran….

With** **loving Bahá’í greetings,

Department of the Secretariat

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