I recently sat down with a successful Iranian writer who resides in New York and Tehran. He publishes on the politics of the regime, its future and the possibilities for democracy. I was hoping to visit Iran at the time, home of my birth, to get a chance to see firsthand the impact of the elections uprisings and whether the movement had really been squashed completely as it seemed. Mostly curious, eager to cover a pressing story and see the country that expelled my family 20 years ago, I asked him to meet me in a very trendy café in NoLita.
Over coffee and pastries he was very optimistic that I should have no problems coming in and leaving, even as a journalist covering the elections, things were not so bad he said. His writing reflected a realist and positive view on Iran's political development. "Things are changing, the government is changing," I've heard him explain more than once to crowds at book signings.
I didn't want to press him too much but I had a specific concern: What if I am a Baha'i?
"Can you be proven to be a Baha'i?" He asked, "By the authorities in Iran?"
I told him I had published a story once in an interfaith college newsletter in undergrad that mentioned in the tagline that I was a member of the Baha'i faith.
"Then no, you can't go. Get that article off the server at the college before you ever think of going."
The threat facing the Baha'is of Iran has been a slow simmer that has in recent years begun to boil. This past June, the homes of 50 Baha'i families were razed in the town of Ivel, in Mazandaran province. Amateur video, shot on mobile telephones and posted on the Internet capture the homes being leveled and burned in the northern town.
This Sunday, seven Baha'is have quietly disappeared into the ether of Iran's human rights record sentenced each to 20 years in prison for practicing a faith that is not recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran. This seven in particular represented the administrative leadership of the nation's community.
Accused of espionage, propaganda activities against the Islamic order, and the establishment of an illegal administration, among other allegations, they have been held -two women and five men- in Tehran's Evin prison since they were arrested in May 2008.
Their incarceration received some attention when Roxanne Saberi referred to being held with the two women, Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet, from the group of seven during her own incarceration. Saberi described that as she was being driven away from Evin upon her release, she cried "tears of sorrow for the many innocent prisoners I was leaving behind." But sadly with only six brief court appearances beginning in January and very limited access to their defense counsel, the case of the seven Baha'i leaders has slipped largely unnoticed by major reporting.
Which is exactly as Iran's leadership would like it to be. With the attention of the world seized on its nuclear program and its relationship to groups like Hizbollah and Hamas, it's no wonder that Iran's domestic policies garner little reaction.
Ultimately, the Baha'is of Iran would not be the first vulnerable community whose plight would slip behind larger world policy issues. But the impunity in which Iran gains advances against religious freedom does raise alarm for the region as a whole. Iran is aware that it has the global human rights community in a death grip, its larger campaigns occupy the international spotlight allowing it to continue to make gains against religious diversity in the region, a region where religious intolerance has made it a tinderbox for violence on the largest scale.
The way in which the arrest, trials and sentencing of the seven Baha'is in Tehran passed quietly by, confirms Iran's confidence that the world has failed to notice that the injustice that Iran commits against a few is intrinsically related to the intolerant threats it makes abroad.
As the 300,000 member faith suffocates slowly in it's own birth land, only those who have experienced modern Iran know the grim reality the Baha'is in Iran are facing.
Iran is changing, but for the Baha'is of Iran, whose adherents advocate non-violence and obedience to one's government, change is not coming soon enough. And while the world waits with optimism that sanctions will do the trick, Iran gets to continue with business as usual.
"I really wouldn't go if I were you," my colleague warned, "If they find out you're a Baha'i and arrest you, there isn't really anything anyone can do for you."
Sadly, the seven sentenced in Tehran, and their government, know all too well how true that is.
May Lample: The Baha'i Understanding of Gender Equality: A Fundamental Spiritual Truth
http://iwpr.net/report-news/mandaean-faith-lives-iranian-south
I don't know if you have, but there is a wealth of material for the situations and pitfalls that arise from being even a recognized religion in Iran.
Schools, government jobs and positions, adopting, blood money, marriage, travel, even the "unclean" signs on the door of any non-Muslim café.
And even then, if you are Sunni, well, Allah (or 'Ali) forbid you be allowed to have Sunni governor in a Sunni majority Province.
I'm so sorry I have not read you before this.
Specifically, any religion who's founder (basic, not the sub-branch) proceded Mohammed is going to have no problems, it is only those like the B'Hai, who's founder came after him that will set the Iranian teeth on edge, and get a reaction out of the extremists.
Not total religious freedom, but not a monoculture either.
That the Jewish legislator feels free to lambaste Ahmadinejad, that the Christian legislators can do the same (in fact, the Majlis has been critical of Ahmadinejad on issues with the same ferocity that the House or Senate has been critical of American Presidents) shows that to be somewhat of a stretch.
In fact, you could make a better case that Knesset members face more intimidation and are at greater risk if they go against the state than you can that Majlis members do.
I think you may a great point, Iran is by no means a monoculture, quite diverse in its population actually. And you are right that because Islam believes that Muhammad will return, a religion such as the Baha'is Faith, which was born after Islam, in essence believes itself to be that return and so hits a particularly sensitive nerve.
I would still insist, however, that Iran has expressed its resistance to progress towards religious diversity in the region by its position against Israel, it’s material support of Shia militias in Iraq to combat the Sunni Awakening Councils (Sahwat), and the general militarization of the “Shia Revival”. The Baha’is are only one such group that pose an ideological incompatibility with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It seems to me that in addition to the situation of the Palestinians, a region dominated by Iran makes Israel nervous as well as Egypt or Syria for the very same reasons that Baha’is face their plight under the current leadership of Iran: the challenge of religious diversity. The sooner we understand the interdependence of the well-being of each of us, Sunni, Shia, Jew, Christian, Baha’i the sooner we can progress on some the power-sharing and right to protection options that are on the table throughout the region, Knesset and the Majlis.
Perhaps that sounds quite fantastical/idealistic for practical purposes, so I welcome your reaction to that last point!
But thank you for bringing this all up with your comments.
Note that Iran supports a religiously diverse population, an ethnically diverse population, and is condemned for its support of groups outside the country that are religiously diverse from the main Iranian religious group.
The Pakistan ISI and the US Funding them is the real issue.
if there are 300,000 Baha'is in Iran, how many are there outside Iran?