wfn.org | Baha'i News: Iranian Baha'i leaders being held incommunicado

["Sally Weeks" <sweeks@bwc.org>]

>Baha'i World News Service

http://www.news.bahai.org <http://news.bahai.org/

>For more information, contact: news@bahai.org

Iranian Baha'i leaders being held incommunicado; growing concern for
their fate

NEW YORK, 27 May (BWNS) -- Six Baha'i leaders who were arrested nearly
two weeks ago are being held incommunicado, without access to lawyers or
relatives, and the Baha'i International Community is increasingly
concerned about their fate.

"Although initial reports indicated they were taken to Evin prison, in
fact we don't know where they are, and we are extremely concerned," said
Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha'i International
Community to the United Nations.

"What is clear is that none of their fundamental rights are being
upheld. They have had no access to family members or counsel. We don't
even know if they have been before a judge or whether they have been
formally charged.

"All we know is what a government spokesperson said last week, which is
that they were arrested for 'security reasons,' a charge that is utterly
baseless.

"We appeal to the international community, human rights groups, and
people of conscience, as well as the news media, to continue their
efforts to press the Iranian government so that the rights of these
people as detainees be upheld and that they be allowed access to counsel
and general communication with the outside -- as a minimum step," said
Ms. Dugal.

The six, all members of the national-level group that helped see to the
minimum needs of Baha'is in Iran, were arrested on 14 May 2008 in an
early morning sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s
when scores of Iranian Baha'i leaders were rounded up and killed.

A seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in
early March in Mashhad after being summoned by the Ministry of
Intelligence office there.

The whereabouts of none of the seven are known, said Ms. Dugal.

"We understood that the six were taken to Evin prison -- the seventh
remaining in Mashhad -- principally because some of the government
agents who arrested the six on the 14th had documents indicating they
would be taken to that notorious place," she said.

"However, in light of the fact that relatives have made repeated
attempts to learn more about the fate of the seven, and in all cases
have been met with evasion and conflicting stories from government
officials, we must now say that we don't know where they are -- and that
our level of concern for their fate is at the highest," Ms. Dugal said.

Arrested on 14 May were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin
Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and
Mr. Vahid Tizfahm. All live in Tehran.

Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March was Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, who also resides
in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of
Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer
questions related to the burial of an individual in the Baha'i cemetery
in that city.

Last week, Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham gave a
press conference at which he acknowledged the arrest and imprisonment of
the six. News reports quoted Mr. Elham as saying on 20 May that the six
were arrested for "security issues" and not because of their religious
beliefs.

Those assertions -- the only public statement by the government about
the arrests -- were immediately rebutted by Ms. Dugal.

"The group of Baha'is arrested last week, like the thousands of Baha'is
who since 1979 have been killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed, are
being persecuted solely because of their religious beliefs," Ms. Dugal
said on 21 May.

>For more information and a photograph, go to
>http://www.news.bahai.org/story/635