Group claims persecution of Baha’i community 

Source: Dominion Post, Wellington

Iranian authorities have escalated persecution of the Baha’i community, targeting at least 77 individuals across the country in recent weeks, despite a second wave of coronavirus infections, according to a global organisation representing the faith. At least 77 Baha’is across eight Iranian provinces have been arrested, summoned to court, tried, sentenced and imprisoned in the last month ‘‘under baseless accusations and for no reason other than a deep-seated antagonism to the Baha’i faith’’, the Baha’i International Community said. The Baha’i faith, which was originally founded in Iran, is seen as heretical by the Islamic Republic. Baha’i shops and cemeteries have been vandalised, and some of its followers blocked from universities and jobs.