Systematic persecution of Iran's Baha'i community by the Islamic Republic, beginning with the 1979 revolution: executions concentrated in the 1980s, denial of higher education and government employment, confiscation of property, and destruction of Baha'i cemeteries and holy places. Distinct from the earlier Babi Persecutions of the 1850s, which targeted the Bab's own followers under the preceding Qajar monarchy.
Facts
Status
Current StatusIranian Baha'is remain barred from the country's public and private universities under the policy the 1991 memorandum set out. Since 1987 the community has maintained its own unaccredited Baha'i Institute for Higher Education, teaching by correspondence, in private homes and online after Iranian agents raided the institute in 1998, arresting at least 36 faculty and staff, with further raids in 2001 and 2003. Iran does not recognize its degrees, but universities in Europe, North America, Australia and India admit its graduates to postgraduate study. 5 Official RecognitionNot formally recognized by any body 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountCondemned repeatedly by UN bodies as systematic religious persecution, but not classified by any international body as genocide or crimes against humanity. Recognition BasisSourced to the subject's own accountCondemned in United Nations General Assembly resolutions on the human rights situation in Iran, adopted annually since 1985, and by successive UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief and on the situation of human rights in Iran, including Ahmed Shaheed's repeated calls between 2011 and 2013 for the release of the Yaran, the community's seven-member leadership group whose detention the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had itself declared arbitrary. Not classified by any international body as genocide or crimes against humanity. 1 Disputed
Death TollSourced to the subject's own accountBaha'i community sources and human rights reporting commonly cite approximately two hundred Baha'is executed in Iran since 1979, concentrated in the 1980s; independent verification of a precise total is limited by the absence of transparency from Iranian authorities. The Event
When It HappenedSourced to the subject's own accountBeginning with the 1979 Iranian Revolution and continuing to the present, with executions concentrated in the 1980s. 1 PeriodSourced to the subject's own account Where It Happened Principal PartiesThe Yaran (Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm), tried before Iran's Revolutionary Court; the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and successive Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Iran, who repeatedly called for their release. 3 Victim GroupSourced to the subject's own accountThe Baha'i community of Iran 1 Perpetrator RegimeSourced to the subject's own accountThe Islamic Republic of Iran, whose 1979 revolution ended the Baha'i community's precarious toleration under the preceding Pahlavi monarchy 1 Consequences
Death TollThe Iran Human Rights Documentation Center's own 2022 tally: 202 Baha'is executed, killed or kidnapped since the 1979 revolution, plus 14 who died in prison, 216 total. Close to the community's own rounder approximately two hundred figure already recorded as the minimum, both concentrated in the 1980s; this is not a wide contested spread, only the difference between a round estimate and a documented count. History
Historical NoteA confidential government memorandum, The Baha'i Question, set the policy that has governed the persecution since. Prepared by Iran's Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council at the request of Ayatollah Khamenei and then President Rafsanjani, and signed on 25 February 1991 by Hujjatu'l Islam Seyyed Mohammad Golpaygani, it directed that Baha'is' progress and development shall be blocked, that they be expelled from universities, denied positions of influence, and refused employment. The document became public in 1993 through a United Nations Special Representative's report to the Commission on Human Rights, and its stated policy of gradual social and economic strangulation, rather than open violence, still describes the pattern documented in later decades. 4 Origins
Defining MomentThe arrest, between March and May 2008, of the seven members of the Yaran, an ad hoc group that had informally attended to the Iranian Baha'i community's needs after its formal administrative institutions were banned. Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm were sentenced in August 2010 to twenty years in prison each, on charges including espionage and "spreading corruption on earth"; the sentence was briefly reduced, then reinstated at twenty years in March 2011. All seven served ten years and were released by 2018. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had already found their detention arbitrary in November 2008. 6 Cross-Tradition Connections
Conducted By
Corresponds To
Persecuted Group
Sources
1. Persecution Of Baha'is (Wikipedia)
2. Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, "Blocked from Progress: Persecution of Iran's Baha'i Community Since 1979" (2022)
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, 2022View the Source 3. OHCHR, "UN Human Rights Experts Urge Iran to Release Baha'i Community Leaders" (2013)
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), United Nations Human Rights Office, 2013View the Source 4. The 1991 Memorandum on 'The Baha'i Question'
Baha'i World News Service, Baha'i World News Servicenews.bahai.org/human-rights/iran/yaran-special-report/feature-articles/the-1991-memorandum-on-the-bahai-questionView the Source 5. What Is the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE)?
Baha'i World News Service, Baha'i World News Servicenews.bahai.org/human-rights/iran/education/bihe/bihe.htmlView the Source 6. Baha'i International Community, "The Story of the Seven Imprisoned Iranian Baha'i Leaders"
Baha'i International Community, Baha'i International Community (bic.org)View the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.