Editor’s Note: The following story was posted on Los Angeles Times online site on Saturday, September 12, 2009:
A trial date has been set for seven leaders of the Bahai community in Iran who have been detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison since the spring of 2008, one of their lawyers said.
After multiple delays, a new date of Oct. 18 has been set, lawyer Abdul-Fatah Soltani said. Soltani, who was recently released from the prison himself, said the group faces seven charges, including two very serious ones: “corrupting the Earth” and “espionage for Israel.”
Both are capital offenses, but Soltani said he doesn’t think they will be sentenced to death, even if convicted. He offered a preview of their defense.
Read the article here
September 14, 2009 2:23 am
Bahais in Egypt
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6918
September 14, 2009 2:08 pm
I am relieved and grateful to hear that theMr. Soltani does not think that the former Yaran will be executed. I think often of them and the agony that is imprisonment in Evin. While hope may seem faint, we can only continue hoping that the authorities within the Iranian government will see the error of their ways and release these innocent people.
September 14, 2009 7:42 pm
The article actually mentions some of the true “crimes” of the Friends. Registering Baha’i marriages contradicts the clerics’ claims that their childen are all illegitimate offspring of prostitutes (because there is no legal marriage for them in Iran). Thus, enforcing Baha’i moral law becomes a conspiracy to imply that these statements are not true, which might tend to lessen the dignity of the status quo.
To sentence the innocent for policy considerations such as this will indeed impair some reputations globally, but to execute them might place a seal on the judgement.