Anti-Baha’i petition at Friday prayers in Tehran

Posted: 19 Sep 2008 04:59 AM CDT

On Wednesday Shahabnews.com, an organ of the Islamic Republic of Iran which prides itself on being a mixture of fundamentalism and reformism, announced that a petition would be circulated at Friday prayers today in Tehran calling for the dissolution of the Bahá’í administration.

As the estimable Ahang Rabbani says on his new site Iran Press Watch: The Bahá’í Community, says:

The report stated that this Friday, 19 September, a petition will be made available for people to sign during the Friday prayer gathering in Tehran, which will be led by the Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demanding a dissolution or ban of the Baha’i administration in Iran.

It was alarming that this news was announced at the same time that the media was told that Ayatollah Khamenei would be presiding over Tehran’s congregational prayer, suggesting a link between the two events.

The portion of the petition which the media quotes suggests that this is a step towards further grave actions that the government or its agents are contemplating towards the Baha’i community of Iran. That is, it appears that the government, through the influence of the elements of the Hojjatieh Society in its ranks, is setting the stage for claiming that wholesale sanctions on all Baha’is in Iran is the will of the people, thereby making it appear as if the government is merely carrying out the popular will (as expressed through the forthcoming petition) by imposing further restrictions on the Baha’i community.

But what Bahá’í administration?

One puzzle in all of this is that there is no Bahá’í administration, since it was dissolved in the 1980s. There are ad hoc leadership bodies at national and local levels (it was the national leadership group that was arrested in May and which remains in prison as I write), but it seems unlikely that this is what the petition is referring to.

A Bahá’í who is in a good position to know about these things has said:

As you all know there are no Bahá’í administration in Iran. The text is referring to something that the government has concocted for itself. Specifically, the Iranian government is perceiving (and therefore promoting) the Faith as a well-organized religion which has a sophisticated spy network (which is most likely what they mean by Tashkilaat, a term that has traditionally been used to describe the machinery of the communist Tudeh party). Most likely, it is this perceived network that the article is referring to, which of course does not exist. Therefore, this whole thing is a set-up from start to finish. The initiators of the petition are not known, the purpose is to dismantle a (spy) network that doesn’t exist, and the result is nothing but to incite Iranians against the Faith.

By the time you read this, the petition, if it exists, will already have been circulated in Tehran. It will be interesting to see what develops. It is all deeply worrying.
Read all about it!

Anyway, you can read more about this here

http://iranpresswatch.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/petition-for-dissolution-of-the-baha%E2%80%99i-administration-in-iran/

on Ahang Rabbani’s blog.