US Baha'is Condemn Persecution Of Group In Iran
The Baha’i community of the United States has issued a condemnation of the ongoing persecution faced by the minority group in Iran.
The Baha’i community of the United States has issued a condemnation of the ongoing persecution faced by the minority group in Iran.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the community expressed its concern and anguish over the relentless oppression of the group of roughly 300,000 by the regime.
The focal point of the community's announcement is the unanimous passage of House Resolution 492 by the United States House of Representatives.
The crucial resolution, entitled Condemning the Government of Iran's State-Sponsored Persecution of the Baha’i Minority and Its Continued Violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights, was introduced by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky [D-IL], supported by a bipartisan group of 28 cosponsors.
House Resolution 492 chronicles the sustained and egregious abuses suffered by the community in Iran since 1979, providing an irrefutable record of their persecution. The resolution emphatically calls on the regime of Iran to immediately cease its persecution of the Baha’is and denounces its continued violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The community's statement also reveals alarming statistics about the recent surge in persecution, beginning in June last year. During this period, over 300 incidents of raids, arrests, arraignments, sentencings, property confiscations, and denials of higher education have been documented. The pattern of oppression continues unabated, with nearly 60 Baha’is arrested or imprisoned, 26 receiving sentences or jail terms, and 59 Baha’i-owned properties forcibly sealed by authorities.
In a note published Monday on his Instagram account ahead of last year’s nationwide protests anniversary on September 16, Esmaeilion accused the regime of simultaneously continuing its “hostage-taking policy” and “obeisance to China and Russia” to force the West into deals with the Islamic Republic.
Esmaeilion also said he would join other Iranians in Toronto, Canada, on September 16 “to chant “Woman, Life, Freedom”, the signature slogan of the movement that was sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police. “I know that sooner or later the Iranian people will topple the Islamic Republic.”
“We will neither forgive nor forget,” Esmaeilion, a dentist-writer who turned into a fierce activist when he lost his wife and young daughter in the downing of a commercial flight over Tehran in January 2020 by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), wrote.
Expatriate Iranian have been planning anniversary demonstrations in several major world cities on Saturday some of which, including in Montreal, Canada, will be held outside US embassies and consulates.
A small group of Iranians staged a rally Monday outside the US Consulate in Toronto to protest what they allege is US government and Canadian “appeasement of the Islamic Republic.”
They were referring to the Biden administration’s decision to unfreeze $6b of the Islamic Republic’s frozen assets in South Korea and “encouraging hostage diplomacy by paying ransom” as well as demanding the US to impose maximum pressure on the regime.
On Monday, the US Congress was informed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has signed a waiver to allow international banks to transfer $6 billion of Iran’s frozen assets in a hostage release deal with Tehran. The State Department says Blinken determined that waiving the sanctions was in the national security interests of the United States.
Both Washington and Tehran since announcing the prisoner swap deal in August had claimed that the prisoner swap deal and the unblocking of the frozen funds were unrelated, but the waiver clearly links the two as one agreement.
"Allowing these funds to be transferred from restricted Iranian accounts held in the (Republic of Korea) to accounts in Qatar for humanitarian trade is necessary to facilitate the release of these US citizens," a US document seen by Reuters on Monday said.
The deal involves the release of five American citizens held in Iran and five Iranians held in the US. American lawmakers have been harshly criticizing the Biden administration for what they say is effective paying a huge ransom, which will only encourage the Iranian regime and endanger more Americans.
Other Iranian figures including exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi and activist Masih Alinejad have on many occasions in the past few years criticized the West for “appeasing the terrorist regime”.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in August last year, the former crown prince said the way Western powers interacted with the Islamic Republic had emboldened it to continue its repressive measures against Iranians with greater immunity.
“Iranian people are not asking the Western countries to save them, they are asking the West to stop saving the Islamic Republic,” Alinejad said in a speech at Italy’s Senate in February.
“The West has always shown weakness against the Islamic Republic’s hostage-taking strategy and still wants to continue appeasing this government,” Canada-based data scientist and activist Ali Ashtari told Iran International TV in February, demanding that Western politicians and expatriate Iranians who “surrender to such humiliation be disgraced.”
The competition, however, does not take place in the parliamentary election, but in the simultaneously held Assembly of Experts where 88 clerics will be elected to a body most likely to determine Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's successor at one point during its 8-year term.
Iranian journalist Ehsan Mazandarani's tweet highlighted the potential for a competition between Raisi and Rouhani should they both decide to run in the Tehran Province. Both individuals currently serve as members of the Assembly of Experts in the Tehran Province. It's worth noting that the Tehran Province has 16 representatives in the assembly, whereas the Province of Semnan has only one delegate.
Readers speculated that the Guardian Council might even disqualify Rouhani for the election to make sure that Raisi can make it to the Assembly smoothly without having to face Rouhani who appears to be more popular among the voters. A safe way out of trouble for Rouhani would be naming himself a candidate from his birthplace province of Semnan.
This makes sense, another reader pointed out, only if Iranians bother to take part in the March 2024 election. The latest two elections in Iran, the parliamentary vote in 2020 and the presidential election in 2021 had turnouts barely over 20 percent in most constituencies. That was too low in a country where an election turnout less than 60 percent was considered too bad.
The disqualification of reformist and moderate candidates and the government's overwhelming biased campaign in favor of hardliners such as Raisi are said to be the reasons for the low turnout. With the massive protests in 2022 many observers are led to believe that the situation is likely to be even worse in March.
While there is significant concern among politicians regarding the parliamentary election and its turnout, there is a noticeable absence of discourse regarding the Assembly of Experts, where competition is minimal. Few Iranians can name three or four Assembly of Experts members, and even fewer are aware of the body's activities. Over the past 30 years, Khamenei has not permitted the assembly to scrutinize his performance. Rather than the Assembly supervising the leader's activities, it is Khamenei who imparts guidance to the Assembly of Experts during their annual meetings.
Some politicians, such as the Parties House Chairman Manouchehr Mottaki have politely and cautiously reminded that before deciding whether to take part in the elections or not, the people will look at the government's performance. What he meant was possibly the adverse impact of people's unhappiness about the government's economic performance which has made life difficult for nearly all walks of life in Iran.
Mottaki said that many Iranian political parties and their leaders fear that the March 2024 elections are likely to have low turnouts. Meanwhile, his comment about "some of the parties willing to take part in the elections," indicated that some of them may not be interested in the elections for the time being.
Equally pessimistic about the upcoming elections was hardliner politician Bijan Moqaddam who is close to the powerful core of the Islamic Republic. He said in an interview with Nameh News that the government's performance will have an impact on the election turnout. Meanwhile, to downplay the importance of the two last elections' extremely low turnout, Moqaddam said that the high turnout in the previous decades have raised people's expectations.
He remarked, "There are approximately six months left before the elections, and the government's actions could potentially stimulate increased participation." Moqaddam may have placed undue optimism in the Raisi administration's capacity to bring about positive change within this relatively brief timeframe.
