Baha’is fear for Iranian friends after UN report

Hexham Courant Published on 26/05/2006

REPRESENTATIVES of the local Baha’i community in Tynedale have reacted with alarm to a United Nations official’s statement about the Iranian government’s recent actions against the Baha’is there.

They have recently learned the government has instituted a highly confidential process of identifying all the Baha’is in the country and monitoring their activities. The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief considers such monitoring “constitutes an impermissable and unacceptable interference with the rights of the members of religious communities.”

“We are seriously concerned for the lives of our fellow Baha’is in Iran,” said local Baha’i, Rosie Villiers-Stuart.

“We know from past experience what horrors may be implied by this new development.

“The whole Baha’i world is making a plea to all nations and peoples on behalf of our fellow Baha’is in Iran, that they not allow a peace-loving and law-abiding people face the extremes to which blind hate can lead. Not again.”

Over 200 Baha’is were killed in Iran, mostly in the years immediately after the Iranian revolution. Thousands more were imprisoned, tortured, or forced into exile.

In recent years the government persecution has lessened in some areas, but in the last few months has sharply intensified again. with the Baha’is being subjected to a campaign of vilification in the government-controlled media of Iran.

For local Baha’is, this new development brings back particularly poignant memories.

Shirin Dalvand, an Iranian Baha’i who lived in Tynedale in the early 1980s, was imprisoned and executed, along with nine other young women, after her return to Iran.

Shirin knew the risks of returning, but felt that her place was at home, in Iran, helping with the education of the children of the community. It was for this that she was executed.

“We planted an oak tree in her memory at the entrance to the Sele in Hexham,” said Rosie.

“It is easy to take for granted the freedoms we have in this country to practice our faith.”

http://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/arts/viewarticle.aspx?id=371338
United Kingdom

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