In the wake of Iran’s bloody crackdown on protesters last month, the Iranian government has taken several steps to justify its brutal response. These measures include a longstanding tactic of blaming the Baha’i people, the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority.
Although Baha’is are committed to universal peace and do not engage in partisan politics, the Iranian government has a well-documented history of systematically persecuting Baha’is, which includes execution, imprisonment, confiscation of property, and barring Baha’is from higher education. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued fatwas condemning Baha’is as unclean (najes), and encouraging people not to socialise with them.
Known for its diversity, the Baha’i Faith is a global religion with communities in nearly every country and territory in the world. The largest national Baha’i community in the world is in India. New Delhi is home to one of the most significant Baha’i Houses of Worship in the world, known as the Lotus Temple. The official website of the Indian Baha’i community states that the purpose of the religion “is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men.” This is a direct quote from the writings of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith.
According to HRANA, the Iranian government killed more than 7,000 Iranians last month in response to protests. In addition to these confirmed deaths, several news outlets have placed the death toll at well over 30,000 for January 8 and 9 alone. An additional 50,000 citizens have been arrested and imprisoned, and several hundred have been forced to confess to crimes. Many, if not the majority, of these Iranians are young people.
Among those arrested are Baha’is who have been denied access to legal counsel, and their families have not been apprised of their whereabouts. At least two of these Baha’is were forced to falsely confess to committing crimes on national television.
Venus Hosseinejad is one of these Baha’is who was arrested in the Iranian city of Kerman. A letter written by her parents states that Hosseinejad suffers from bipolar disorder and that “she has been subjected to intense physical and psychological pressure. To escape these unbearable conditions, she declared her readiness to ‘cooperate,’ which apparently meant submitting to forced and false confessions.” Hosseinejad’s confession was then aired by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Iran’s primary media outlet.
This type of fabricated televised confession is not new in Iran. In 2022, the European Union (EU) sanctioned IRIB for broadcasting forced confessions and “violating internationally recognised rights to a fair trial and due process.” The interrogator-reporter who recently coerced Baha’is to confess as part of her falsified report is Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour. The EU sanctioned Zabihpour by name in 2022 because of her role as the producer of similar government propaganda. The EU concluded, therefore, that she and the IRIB are “responsible for serious human rights violations in Iran.”
Forced confessions in Iran are not simply a media tactic. IranWire concludes that they “are a hallmark of the Iranian judiciary.” France 24 reports that Iran “has aired an ‘unprecedented’ number of coerced televised confessions in recent weeks” numbering in the hundreds.
In response to the recent forced confession of Baha’is, the Baha’i International Community (BIC) issued a statement calling on the international community to unequivocally condemn the scapegoating and persecution of the Baha’is and to raise the call for justice for all the people of Iran. The report concludes that the forced confessions are “a major escalation in the Iranian government’s campaign against the Baha’i community.” Simin Fahandej, BIC Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, states that “Based on the principles of their Faith, the Baha’is in Iran have utterly rejected violence throughout the decades of intolerable persecution. They have declined to resort to the hateful and unjust tactics of their persecutors.”
Despite appeals and resolutions from the United Nations and countries around the world over the past half-century, the Iranian government continues to scapegoat Baha’is as it faces internal and external pressure related to its human rights abuses.
The writer teaches at Idaho State University
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