The Australian Baha’i Community has expressed its outrage at the rounding up and incarceration of six more Baha’is in Iran this week.
According to reports received from Iran, the six were arrested after government agents raided the homes of at least 11 Baha’is.
One of the arrest
ed is Jinous Sobhani, who worked in a human rights organisation founded by Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi that was shut by Iranian authorities last month.
The arrests come almost eight months to the day since dawn raids picked up members of the national coordinating committee of the Baha’is of Iran.
The seven members of that committee have been imprisoned without charge or access to lawyers ever since.
“The arrests this week are outrageous,” Australian Baha’i Community spokesperson, Natalie Mobini said today.
“As far as we know, all of these people were arrested because they are Baha’is,” Dr Mobini said.
UN condemnation
“The arrests follow the strong condemnation by the United Nations General Assembly, just one month ago, of the persecution of the Baha’is and other human rights breaches in Iran,” Dr Mobini said today.
Australia was one of more than 40 countries that co-sponsored the General Assembly resolution on 19 December 2008 which condemned “increasing discrimination” by Iran against Baha’is, Christians, Jews, Sufis, Sunni Muslims, and other minorities, its use of torture, the high incidence of executions, and the “violent repression” of women.
Chilling
“The link between one of the Baha’is arrested this week and the work of Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi is a chilling indication that the Iranian Government is intent on stifling any expression of human rights in general and religious freedom in particular,” Dr Mobini said.
“This is simply religious persecution of the most ominous kind,” she said.
“It is well known that the Baha’is of Iran, who comprise that country’s biggest religious minority, are law-abiding and non-political,” she said.
“At least two of some 30 Baha’is now in prison in Iran have close relatives in the Australian Baha’i community.”
Read a full report from the Baha’i World News Service