Memorandum from the Bahá'í
Community of the United Kingdom
The UK Bahá'í community requests
that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee should invite it to
send a representative to give oral evidence as a witness at the
evidence session on Iran, to be held on Tuesday, 11 February 2003,
ahead of the visit to Iran in March. We believe that the Bahá'í
community has a unique and important understanding of the challenges
to universal human rights that persist in Iran and ask the Committee
to consider our representation on the following grounds:
— Human rights issues are taken into
consideration as part of overall UK policy towards Iran.
— Human rights abuses within Iran,
including religious intolerance, have motivated the international
community to censure the government in Tehran through the appropriate
machinery of the United Nations for 18 years until this process
was terminated by a single vote last year.
— With a community of 300-350,000 people,
the Bahá'ís of Iran constitute the largest religious
minority in Iran, although they are not recognised as a religion
by the government. They have faced systematic, wide ranging persecution
at the hands of the Iranian state over many years.
— Mistreatment of Bahá'ís
increased substantially after the 1979 Revolution. Over 200 Bahá'ís
were killed since 1978, the majority at the hands of the state,
including the elected leadership of the community. Other acts
of repression suffered by the Bahá'ís included disappearances,
imprisonments, torture and a wide range of denials of rights,
such as employment, marriage, access to education and pensions.
— Many of these problems persist to
the present day and efforts to eradicate the Bahá'í
community is defined in a government policy, uncovered by the
UN, that to this day has never been disavowed.
— The Bahá'í community
of the UK has extensive experience in campaigning for better human
rights in Iran and can demonstrate strong track record at national
and international level for over 20 years.
— We wish to see human rights for all
of Iran's citizens, but we regard the treatment of the Bahá'í
community as a litmus test of Iranian sincerity to improve human
rights.
— Since the fall of the resolution
on Iran at the UN Commission for Human Rights and the commencement
of the EU dialogue with Tehran on human rights, our community
has drafted a series of benchmarks to enable those engaged in
dialogue to evaluate progress towards the emancipation of the
Bahá'ís in Iran. These benchmarks have been well
received by the UK and other governments as a positive contribution
to effective dialogue. We believe this concept may be suitably
applied to all aspects of Iran's human rights record.
— We would wish to stress that the
Bahá'í community does not seek a change of the government
of Iran, nor has it ever sought to engage in political subterfuge
in that state.
— Our soul goal is the emancipation
of our Iranian co-religionists.
— We feel that we can justifiably claim
a level of expertise and relevance to any debate on Iran that
is second to none within the UK non governmental sector.
Bahá'í Community of the United Kingdom
January 2003
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