Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations he has made to the Iranian authorities about the persecution and detention of members of the Bahá'í faith in that country.

We have repeatedly expressed our concern at the treatment of the Baha'i community in Iran, including the sentencing of seven Baha'i leaders in Iran to 20 years imprisonment and the regular harassment the community suffers from. We raised the treatment of Baha'is with the UN Special Rapporteur at the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014, and in our contacts with the Iranian authorities. We will continue to call on the Iranian government to ensure that all its citizens are able to exercise their right to freedom of religion, free from persecution and harassment.