Ban, abduction and minority persecution in Iran

" The leadership of Iran's Bahai community - five men and two women - have been in jail for more than two years. They have have been accused of spying for Israel - a common charge against Bahais, whose international headquarters is in the Israeli port of Haifa."
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by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

(July 04, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) In response to US sanctions against Iran targeting the Iranian nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has imposed ban on Western products including Coca Cola, Nestle, IBM, Intel etc. The companies join a long line of "Jewish-owned" American companies that have been black-listed by the Iranian regime as part of their ‘protest’ against US and United Nations sanctions. Ahmadinejad calls it “his action against Zionist products”. The new US law excludes any companies involved in selling refined petroleum products to Iran from selling in the US market. Another stipulation of the law bars foreign banks that do business in Iran from accessing the US financial system.

The Mullah regime is also set to block a few dozens of news sites and websites containing critical information on Iran.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency's [IAEA] announced Thursday [July 1, 2010] that Ollie Heinonen, the chief of its safeguards department which inspects nations' nuclear programs to ensure that fissile materials are not being diverted for military use, was planning on leaving his job for personal reasons after spending 30 years at the organization. Heinonen, a 63-year-old Finnish radiochemist, caused great international worry in February 2008 with a power-point presentation to diplomats showing links between Teheran's efforts to process uranium and Iranian tests of high explosives and modifications to missiles to deliver a nuclear payload.

Two IAEA inspectors were told they were denied access to nuclear facilities in Iran, by Atomic Energy Organization of Iran head Ali Akbar Salehi on June 21. The Iranian news agency quoted Salehi as saying the inspectors had “disclosed information before it had been examined officially” and “provided the media with false information on Iran’s nuclear work” at a recent IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna.

While the news of sanctions is flooding the global media, there is fresh news of abduction, torture and rape from Iran. Daughter-in-law of imprisoned Iranian labor leader Mansour Osanloo was kidnapped, beaten and raped on June 23.

Parveneh Osanloo, wife of the labor leader told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that her daughter-in-law was abducted at metro station in Tehran while she was returning home from work. She was blindfolded and taken to an unknown place, where she was mercilessly beaten and raped. Her assailants demanded that she sign a paper pledging that if Mansour Osanloo was released from prison, his family would either give up political activities or leave Iran. Parvaneh Osanloo also told that her daughter-in-law suffered a miscarriage from the assault and rape.

There is also alarming news about repression of Bahai community in Iran. Bahai groups warn that life is becoming harder and harder for the 300,000 followers of the religion in Iran. Bahais have lived in the area in Iran's Mazadaran province for more than 100 years, says Diane Alai, the representative of the Bahai community at the UN in Geneva. Diane said, they have noticed an increase in the persecution of Bahais since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Bahai faith emerged after a split in Shia Islam in the 19th Century. It was founded in Iran - but it has long been banned in its country of origin. The Bahais consider Bahaullah, born in 1817, to be the latest prophet sent by God. Followers of the faith have faced discrimination in Iran both before and after the 1979 revolution. The religion was not recognised by the post-revolutionary constitution, and its followers have limited rights under Iranian laws. For example, Bahais are banned from working in government offices, and they are not allowed to study at university. Iranian inheritance laws do not apply to Bahais, and Bahai businessmen are often denied a licence to set up shop. Bahai cemeteries have also been desecrated.

The leadership of Iran's Bahai community - five men and two women - have been in jail for more than two years. They have have been accused of spying for Israel - a common charge against Bahais, whose international headquarters is in the Israeli port of Haifa.

"Their crime is that they are Bahais and they say they do not want to change their religion," says lawyer and Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. She fled Iran after her own life was threatened.

Bahai organisations say that their religion has six million followers across the world. Their teachings have not gone down well with many mainstream Muslims, who see the Bahai faith as an affront to Islam. Some even call the Bahai blasphemous.

After the revolution of Khomeini and subsequent exclusion of Bahá'ís from the protections of citizenship, fanatical elements in the society began a full-scale assault on the community. Prominent Shia clergymen launched attacks on Bahá'ís from the pulpit and in the media, denouncing them as "enemies of Islam", "corrupt on earth", and persons "whose blood deserves to be shed". The effect was to unleash waves of violence. Members of the Faith were beaten, many businesses were confiscated or destroyed, hundreds of houses burned, and efforts began with a view to forcing Bahai’s to recant their faith. By early 1980 this campaign had begun to enlist key organs of the government. Bahai’s were hunted out and discharged from all forms of government employment. Prominent members of the community were dragged before revolutionary tribunals and, in June of 1980, after summary mock trials, a series of executions began. With the assumption of full power by the mullahs that same month, horrors multiplied daily: Bahai girls kidnapped from their families and raped, the bodies of highly-respected Bahai’s dragged through the streets, cemeteries bulldozed, their tombstones auctioned, widows forced to pay the price of the bullets which had been used to execute their husbands, and appalling tortures practiced on prisoners in the unending attempt to force the Bahai’s to recant their faith. The background of these outrages was a daily life in which Iranian Bahá'ís had become social outcasts with no recourse against whatever abuse the ill-disposed chose to commit. Bahai marriages, regardless of duration, were declared null and void, Bahai marital life was deemed prostitution [itself punishable by death], and Bahai children were judged illegitimate. A "Law of Retaliation" exempted crimes against Bahai’s from any punishment under the law. Bahai holy places were seized and publicly desecrated, Bahai children were expelled from schools throughout Iran, and retired Bahai’s were summoned to repay not only the pensions to which they had contributed during government service but also the salaries that had been paid to them during their years of employment.

On the night of 18 June 1983 the Islamic revolutionary authorities in Shiraz hanged ten Bahai women and teenage girls who had refused to recant their Faith and convert to Islam. Three days earlier the same authorities had hanged six men, including the husbands, fathers, and sons of four of the women. The Islamic judge who presided at the trials, Hujjatu'l-Islam Qaza’i, was quoted in the government-controlled newspaper Khabar-i-Junub as warning that, if Bahai’s did not recant their Faith, "the day will soon come when the Islamic Nation will...God willing fulfill the prayer of Noah: `Lord leave not one single family of infidels upon the earth'."

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is the editor of Weekly Blitz newspaper.