Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran
Six
Bahá'í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to
the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that
is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when
scores of Iranian Bahá'í leaders were summarily
rounded up and killed. It seems the six are held in
the notorious Evin 209 section and are undergoing
interrogations.
The
International Bahaii press agency announced that The
six men and women, all members of the national-level
group that helped see to the minimum needs of
Bahá'ís in Iran, were in their homes Wednesday
morning when government intelligence agents entered
and spent up to five hours searching each home,
before taking them away.
The seventh member of the national coordinating
group was arrested in early March in Mashhad after
being summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence
office there on an ostensibly trivial matter.
Ms.Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the
Bahá'í International Community to the United
Nations. condemned the detention of the Bahaiis and
has said that their only crime is practicing the
Bahá'í Faith.
"Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep
recalls the wholesale arrest or abduction of the
members of two national Iranian Bahá'í governing
councils in the early 1980s -- which led to the
disappearance or execution of 17 individuals," she
said.
"The early morning raids on the homes of these
prominent Bahá'ís were well coordinated, and it is
clear they represent a high-level effort to strike
again at the Bahá'ís and to intimidate the Iranian
Bahá'í community at large," said Ms. Dugal.
Arrested yesterday were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr.
Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid
Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid
Tizfahm. All live in Tehran. Mrs. Kamalabadi, Mr.
Khanjani, and Mr. Tavakkoli have been previously
arrested and then released after periods ranging
from five days to four months.
Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008 was Mrs. Mahvash
Sabet, who also resides in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet 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.
On 21 August 1980, all nine members of the National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Iran were
abducted and disappeared without a trace. It is
certain that they were killed.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of
Iran was reconstituted soon after that but was again
ravaged by the execution of eight of its members on
27 December 1981.
The International Bahaii press agency announced that
a number of members of local Bahá'í governing
councils, known as local Spiritual Assemblies, were
also arrested and executed in the early 1980s,
before an international outcry forced the government
to slow its execution of Bahá'ís. Since 1979, more
than 200 Bahá'ís have been killed or executed in
Iran, although none have been executed since 1998.
In 1983, the government outlawed all formal Bahá'í administrative institutions and the Iranian Bahá'í community responded by disbanding its National Spiritual Assembly, which is an elected governing council, along with some 400 local level elected governing councils. Bahá'ís throughout Iran also suspended nearly all of their regular organizational activity.