Baha’i Community in Iran

Debate between Holly Lynch and Alistair Carmichael

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving way. He is making a really powerful speech. I have been approached by a number of people in my constituency who are incredibly concerned about this crackdown and the human rights abuses right across Iran. It is particularly worrying for those who belong to my Baha’i community in Halifax. I thank them not only for bringing this to my attention, but for the community work they do in Halifax. Reading the information about what is happening in Iran, I found it particularly heartbreaking to learn of the arrest and detention of parents of young children, leaving those children without parental care. That demonstrates the impact this crackdown is having on families and children in particular.

[Mr Carmichael]

This is where it becomes personal for us all. As a parent, I can only imagine what it would be like to find myself under that sort of pressure. It touches on my earlier point about the pervasive, all-encompassing nature of the persecution of the Baha’is. They find themselves excluded from just about every aspect of normal, everyday life that we would take for granted. It is this element of systematic oppression that is particularly concerning.

On 2 August 2022, Iran sealed off the village of Roushankouh in the Mazandaran province, blocking off road access by sending in 200 armed agents of the Iranian state. Six homes were demolished by heavy equipment and 20 hectares of Baha’i-owned property were confiscated, according to the Baha’i International Community. Amnesty International reports that villagers had their mobile phones taken to stop them filming, while peaceful protesters were beaten and targeted with pepper spray. That incident follows a similar demolition of at least 50 homes in the village of Ivel, also in the Mazandaran province, in June 2021.

As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned earlier, access to education is severely limited by the state. Most Baha’is are excluded from the national entrance examination to higher education institutions because their applications are characterised as “file incomplete”—illustrating the way in which bureaucracy can be used as a tool of religious oppression—as they do not come from one of the four constitutionally recognised religions. This year, as of August 2022, more than 90 Baha’i students were prevented from enrolling in Iranian universities, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence has further accused believers of espionage and infiltrating education institutions.

In 2020, Baha’i faith believers became unable to register for identity cards for a similar reason to that given to those applying for higher education. The option of “other religion” was removed from the application form—an example of Iran cracking down on even a hint of an already oppressed minority—and that has caused real problems, as the Baha’is are not allowed to lie about their faith.

Baha’i-owned shops have been another target of the Iranian regime in recent years. Iranian authorities have systematically closed Baha’i-owned shops without legitimate cause. We also have the horrific situation of more than 1,000 Baha’is facing legal hearings on false charges or being summoned to be put into overcrowded prisons— something that is unjust and unsustainable. But the cruelty does not stop there. In April 2021, Amnesty International reported that authorities prevented Baha’is from burying their loved ones in empty plots at a cemetery near Tehran, insisting that they bury them between existing graves or at the nearby Khavaran mass grave, a site related to the 1988 prison massacres. This ban was eventually lifted after mass public outcry, but the fact that it was ever even imposed shows the Iranian regime’s contempt for the Baha’is within its own borders.

The explicit policy to take away the social and economic rights of the Baha’is is driven by a memorandum from the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council back in 1991, which was prepared for the Supreme Leader to deal with what was termed “the Baha’i question”. Just consider the use of that term, “the Baha’i question”. This memorandum’s provisions say that the Iranian Government should conduct their dealings with the Baha’i community in such a way that

“their progress and development are blocked”.

As this shows, the recent sweeping crackdown is just the latest in a long line of actions against believers of the Baha’i faith.

The oppression of the Baha’is in Iran has, however, been noticed and will continue to be noticed, and it will be rightfully condemned by human rights campaigners, media and Government. I welcome the comments of Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who was quick to condemn this summer’s developments, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to working with international partners to hold Iran accountable. I hope that that will not be an isolated comment and that the Government of this country will continue to call this out when they find it. What we are witnessing in Iran today is not a new development. The Baha’i community have faced an unjust assault on their freedoms for decades, but it is deeply troubling to watch this new intensification unfold.

For many years, Baha’i officers around the world have suggested that the treatment of their community in Iran offered an instructive litmus test on the sincerity of Iranian authorities towards reform and respect for human rights. In addition to the plight of the Baha’is, we witness a wider human rights crisis engulfing Iran and taking the lives of young Iranians, most notably young women. Iran has failed that litmus test. The Baha’i community and all other persecuted religious minorities across the globe deserve better. They deserve our support. They deserve our actions and the actions of our Government in calling out the actions of the Iranian Government where they are seen. We will not ignore what is happening. I hope that, if this is heard in Tehran, that is the one message that they will take from today’s proceedings.