A letter from a Baha’i Woman in Sari to the Prosecutor’s Office

September 16, 2010 , editor , 1 Comment

Shahrivar 17, 1389 [September 8, 2010] HRA News – Agents of the Ministry of Intelligence of the City of Sari raided the house of a Baha’i family living in the city, verbally and physically assaulted them and confiscated all of their personal belongings. The mother of the family wrote a letter to the prosecutor to complain about these actions.

Sari (/Sārī/ Mazandarani: ساری, Persian: ساری) is the provincial capital of Mazandaran

The contents of the letter of Ms. Naghmeh Hafezi to the District Attorney of the city of Sari has been given to HRA news and is copied below:

In the name of Him who is Exalted,

To the Honorable District Attorney of the Revolutionary Court of the City of Sari
With all due respect, I, Naghmeh Hafezi, daughter of Bijan would like to inform you that at 2:15 PM on Wednesday the 16th of Shahrivar, 1389 [September 7th, 2010], seven individuals dressed in civilian clothing, without ringing the doorbell, entered our apartment building and, using my 7 year old son [to open the door], raided our house and started to collect our personal belongings. When my husband, who was not home at the time they arrived, came home, he complained to them, asking why seven men without female accompaniment entered a house (where there was only a young woman present). At this point they started to beat up my husband, defamed our sacred beliefs and figures and insulted us with vulgar words.

They tore apart our religious pictures and insulted them. After collecting all of our household belongings, they created a list and told us this was the only copy; they said we had to sign it, but that they would not give us any other copy of it. When I refused to sign, they said if we didn’t sign it they would not give any of our belongings back to us.

When they were on the stairs they told me that we had to be at the Ministry of Intelligence by 9 AM the next morning; that if we were not there on time, they would come back for us with handcuffs. They treated me like a dangerous criminal — yet even as all of this occurred they did not have any warrant to justify their actions.

I ask you to investigate this violation of personal privacy and dignity, and to consider returning our belongings, including my personal laptop, computer bags, and memory cards for our camera and video camera, which contain personal and family pictures.