BAHA'I INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY REJECTS IRANIAN ALLEGATIONS ON RECENT ARRESTS

NEW YORK, 21 May 2008 (BWNS) --

Allegations by Iran that six Baha'is werearrested last week for security reasons and not for their faith" areutterly baseless and without documentation, said the Baha'i InternationalCommunity today.

All of the allegations issued in a statement on Tuesday by the Iraniangovernment are utterly baseless," said Bani Dugal, the principalrepresentative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations,referring to statements made in a press conference given yesterday in Tehranby Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham, at which heacknowledged the arrest and imprisonment of six Baha'i leaders last week.
The allegations are not new, and the Iranian government knows well that theyare untrue," Ms. Dugal said. The documented plan of the Iranian governmenthas always been to destroy the Baha'i community, and these latest arrestsrepresent an intensification of this plan.
The group of Baha'is arrested last week, like the thousands of Baha'is whosince 1979 have been killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed, are beingpersecuted solely because of their religious beliefs. The best proof of thisis the fact that, time and again, Baha'is have been offered their freedom ifthey recant their Baha'i beliefs and convert to Islam, an option few havetaken.
Far from being a threat to state security, the Baha'i community of Iran hasgreat love for their country and they are deeply committed to itsdevelopment. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that the vastmajority of Baha'is have remained in Iran despite intense persecution, thefact that students denied access to education in Iran and forced to studyabroad have returned to assist in the development of their country, and therecent effort by Baha'is in Shiraz to provide schooling for underprivilegedchildren - an effort the government responded to by arresting some 54 Baha'iparticipants in May 2006," said Ms. Dugal.
In its coverage of Mr. Elham's press conference, the Islamic Republic NewsAgency (IRNA) reported that the six Baha'is were arrested for securityreasons not for their faith." The IRNA report also quoted Mr. Elham assaying that the six Baha'is were somehow linked to foreigners, the Zionistsin particular."
Ms. Dugal addressed that issue also, saying:
The charges linking the Baha'is to Zionism are a distortion of history: TheBaha'i Faith has its world headquarters in Israel because Baha'u'llah was,in the mid-1800s, sent as a prisoner to the Holy Land by two Islamiccountries: Ottoman Turkey and Iran.
The charge that Baha'is are Zionists, which has in fact been made againstBaha'is for the last 30 years by Iran, is nothing more than an effort by thegovernment to stir animosity against Baha'is among the Iranian population atlarge. This is but the most recent iteration in a long history of attemptsto foment hatred by casting the Baha'is as agents of foreign powers, whetherof Russia, the United Kingdom, or the United States and now Israel all ofwhich are completely baseless.
The real issue, as it relates to Baha'is, who are committed tononpartisanship and nonviolence, is the ideology of the government, whichhas undertaken a well-documented effort to utterly block the development ofthe Baha'i community not only through arrests, harassment and imprisonmentbut also by depriving their youth of education and preventing adults fromobtaining a livelihood.
We would ask whether issues of state security rather than ideology wereinvolved in recent incidents such as the destruction of a Baha'i cemeteryand the use of a bulldozer to crush the bones of a Baha'i who was interredthere; the harassment of hundreds of Baha'i schoolchildren throughout Iranby teachers and school officials in an effort to make them reject their ownreligion; or the publication of dozens of defamatory anti-Baha'i articles inKayhan and other government-sponsored news media in recent months," said Ms.Dugal.
She also noted that over the years, a number of government officials,clerics, and members of the judiciary have in fact made statements inprivate noting the nonpartisan conduct of the Baha'i community and theunjustified nature of government charges against Baha'is.
She added that the present government s ideology is based in large part on abelief that there could be no Prophet following Muhammad. The Baha'i Faithposes a theological challenge to this belief.
Freedom of religion is the issue and Iran itself is a signatory tointernational covenants that acknowledge the right of individuals to freedomof religion or belief, including the right to change one s religion," Ms.Dugal said.
What the Iranian government cannot tolerate is that the Iranian people areless responsive to the government s propaganda, because they see the realitythat Iranian Baha'is love their country, are sincere in their desire tocontribute to its well-being, are peace-loving, and are law-abiding andthat these qualities stem from their beliefs. Consequently, there is growingsympathy for the Baha'is. Increasingly, people at all levels of the societyare coming to their defense both privately and publicly, and there isgrowing interest in and attraction to the Baha'i Faith amongst thepopulation," Ms. Dugal said.
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--8-BIC-080521-1-IRANMAYUPDATE-634-S
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