Source: www.bic.org
Brussels—29 November 2024—An “urgency resolution” by the European Parliament “strongly condemned” the Iranian government’s “persecution of ethnic and religious minorities” yesterday with an overwhelming majority, citing a 1991 memorandum signed by Iran’s supreme leader, which describes the government’s state-sponsored policy to persecute the Baha’is, and which calls for the “progress and development” of the Baha’i community to be “blocked”.
The resolution also insisted on “the immediate and unconditional release” of all victims of arbitrary detention, including human rights activists and women’s rights defenders, and denounced the Iranian authorities for summoning or jailing at least 72 Baha’i women in recent months.
“Members of the European Parliament have taken a powerful stand for human rights in Iran today, and for the Baha’is in Iran. This urgency resolution, which addresses the Iranian government’s harassment of women alongside the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, is welcome recognition and support for all Iranian citizens,” said Rachel Bayani, Representative of the Baha’i International Community (BIC) to the European institutions in Brussels.
“The European Parliament is showing Iran’s government that they know the persecution of Baha’is is a state-sponsored policy and that representatives of 27 European countries are watching,” she added.
The European Parliament’s resolution also mentioned two Baha’i women by name, Neda Emadi and Parastoo Hakim, both of whom were arrested for no reason other than their religion and jailed despite having young children at home. The two were among 10 Baha’i women sentenced in October to a total of 90 years in prison.
“Iranian diplomats and officials have always denied the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran,” Ms. Bayani said. “By including the Iranian government’s 1991 memorandum in this resolution, the European Parliament is raising further awareness of the Iranian government’s systematic and formal agenda to persecute and suffocate the Baha’is in Iran, and it shows beyond any doubt that the Baha’is are persecuted only for their faith.”
The 1991 ‘Baha’i Question’ memorandum describes how Baha’is are to be harassed in their efforts to live normal lives, by being barred from university educations or from earning livelihoods, as a coordinated national strategy. Issued by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and signed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian government has never denied the existence of this memorandum, nor has it rescinded the policy despite appeals and criticism from the international community.
News published by the BIC in May reported that of 93 Baha’is detained or summoned across Iran, 72 of them were women, exposing a surge in attacks on Baha’i women in the country. These women had been summoned to court, faced baseless criminal charges and years in prison, separated from their families and subjected to the cruelty and violence of the Iranian judicial system.
The European Parliament resolution comes just five weeks after eighteen United Nations (UN) experts in an unprecedented step, together condemned Iran’s targeting of Baha’i women. The 18 UN Special Rapporteurs and UN Working Group experts released a joint allegation letter rebuking the Islamic Republic of Iran for the recent rise in attacks against Baha’i women. Women from Iran’s Baha’i community face intersectional persecution as both women and as Baha’is, the BIC said at the time.
“We express serious concern at what appears to be an increase in systematic targeting of Iranian women belonging to the Baha’i religious minority throughout the country,” the UN experts said in their statement, “including through arrests, summoning for interrogation, enforced disappearance, raids on their homes, confiscation of their personal belongings, limitations on their freedom of movement as well as prolonged, consecutive deprivations of liberty.”
Last week the United Nations General Assembly also passed a new resolution rebuking Iran for its human rights violations, and in recent weeks a major new report on direct, structural and cultural violence against the Baha’is was launched, while UN Member-States and UN experts also shared their concerns during UN sessions. In April, Human Rights Watch also published a report finding that Iran’s treatment of the Baha’is amounted to the “crime against humanity of persecution”.
“From the United Nations to the European Parliament, and with human rights organizations and activists around the world, the Iranian government has lost all credibility. Human rights defenders and international bodies are asking, in one voice, for the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran to immediately stop,” Ms. Bayani said.
“Iran has nowhere left to turn in its efforts to plead ignorance or to accuse the Baha’is in Iran of utterly baseless and unproven crimes,” she added. “Iran’s authorities should change course now, by releasing all Baha’i prisoners and all innocent Iranians from jail, and by rescinding anti-Baha’i policies and respecting the fundamental human rights of all Iranian citizens.”
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