Foreign Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence from the Bahá’í Community of the UK

A. Summary

The Bahá’í community of the United Kingdom actively engages with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in a number of areas of human rights concern.

These include countries of particular concern, notably Iran, as well as thematic issues, such as religious freedom and the rights of minorities.

We welcome and value the content and tone of the 2011 Annual Human Rights and Democracy report by the FCO.

British Ministers and civil servants make a significant contribution towards international efforts to hold human rights violators to account at the international level, specifically at the United Nations General Assembly and at sessions of the UN Human Rights Council.

We would, however, welcome greater visibility of British positions on the situation of the Bahá’í community in Iran through public statements at inter-governmental fora under the aegis of the United Nations.

We welcome the inclusion of the issue of freedom of religion or belief as a key issue for the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Group on Human Rights and encourage the FCO to continue its reflection on how best to promote this fundamental human right.

B. Introduction

This memorandum of evidence is offered by the Office of Public Affairs of the Bahá’í Community of the UK.

The Bahá’í Faith is the youngest of the world’s independent religions. Today there are approximately 6,000 Bahá’ís across the United Kingdom, who follow the teachings of Bahá’ú’llah, Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith. The central theme of Bahá’ú’llah’s writings is that humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its unification in one global society.

The Office of Public Affairs is an agency of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the UK, the national governing body of the UK Bahá’í community, and seeks to contribute to the life of society on the national stage.

C. Main Body of Report

Geographic areas of interest

C.1 Iran

The Bahá’í community of Iran is believed to be at least 300,000 strong, making it the largest non-Islamic religious minority in the country. As a post-Mohammedan religion the Bahá’í Faith is not accorded the status of Ahl al Kitáb (people of the book), a recognition granted to Christianity, Judaism, and by historical precedence to Zorostrianism , in the 1979 constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Bahá’í community therefore have no constitutional rights and may be referred to as “unprotected infidels”. The Bahá’í community has faced systematic state persecution for their faith since the inception of the 1979 Revolution. Innocent Bahá’ís have faced a range of abuses from execution, torture and imprisonment to seizure of properties, denial of access to education and even the desecration of the graves of their deceased loved ones.

Reports in the years since 2004 point to a steady increase in the rate of arbitrary detentions and imprisonments. The imprisonment of seven Bahá’í leaders in 2010 marked another significant stepping up of the pressure on the Bahá’í community. Developments in the first months of 2012 illustrate a further and worrying deterioration.

The Bahá’í community of the UK therefore welcomes the content of the annual Human Rights and Democracy report that accurately reflects the overall situation of human rights in Iran as well as the specific problems facing the Bahá’í community.

We agree with the wider assessment of the FCO that, “There has been no improvement in the human rights situation in Iran, and in some areas there has been deterioration” and note the observation that; “Ethnic and religious minorities faced systematic crackdowns.”

We are concerned at the pattern of growing pressure on the right of freedom of religion or belief in Iran as evidenced by the sections of the report detailing the arbitrary arrests of over 400 Christians associated with the “house church” movement. Greater cause for disquiet is found in the report of apostasy charges against Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who may face execution.

The report also details the specifics of the persecution of the Bahá’í community in Iran, and gives concrete information on the imprisonment of the Bahá’í leaders; the pressures that deny Bahá’ís access to higher education and recent reports that the authorities in the city of Sanadaj are trying to dissuade the Bahá’is there from attending their regular religious gathering, known as the Nineteen Day Feast.

We welcome the attention of the FCO to these details. The support given by the Minister of State, who has met Bahá’í representatives, and the Foreign Secretary, who has made two principled statements on the plight of the Bahá’í leaders is regarded as being of the most significant value.

Information received during the past year indicates that the trends of targeting Iranian Bahá’is for detention and imprisonment continue to rise. At the date of this memorandum’s drafting, 109 Bahá’ís are reported to be imprisoned and some 556 have been arrested since August 2004. In addition to the pressures that face Bahá’í students at higher education institutions, a separate and deeply disturbing trend of the persecution continues to see Bahá’í school children at all school levels monitored and slandered and bullied by school officials.

At the global level we welcome and commend the successful efforts of the FCO in working alongside international partners to maintain scrutiny of Iran’s human rights record as manifested in the resolution adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in December of 2011 by an increased majority, and in a further resolution at the United Nations in March of 2012, again by an increased majority, that extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Dr Ahmed Shaheed.

The overwhelming margin of the vote in favour of the re-appointment of the Special Rapporteur—by 22 votes to five with 20 abstentions—represents a growing international consensus on the abysmal nature of Iran’s human rights situation. Concern remains that Iran’s government continues to fail to cooperate with the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and deny Dr Shaheed a visa to visit the country.

We would offer these recommendations for how the efforts of the FCO to defend the Bahá’í community in Iran:

1. Public statements made by the Foreign Secretary and Ministers at the FCO have significant impact. We believe it is of particular value to have Ministers raise named cases of individuals who are unjustly imprisoned for their beliefs, and encourage the Foreign Secretary and his Ministers to regularly raise named cases, including Bahá’ís who have been imprisoned on account of their faith in Iran.

2. The FCO should seek to capitalise upon the extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Iran by engaging international partners, particularly governments from within the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, as well as African, Asian and Latin American governments, to bring influence to bear on the Iranian government to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur and to grant Dr Shaheed a visa, without conditions and limitations, and to allow Dr Shaheed the widest possible scope to fulfil his mandate.

3. The Bahá’í community in Iran is not recognised as a religious community by those who in authority there. Any discussion on the human rights of religious minorities in Iran will not relate to the Bahá’í community from the perspective of the Iranian government. It is therefore important for the FCO to continue to specifically raise the situation of the Bahá’í community in Iran as a separate and significant element within the broader spectrum of human rights concerns in Iran.

C.2 Egypt

We note with concern the issues of freedom of religion or belief highlighted by the report in relation to Egypt such the attack on a Coptic Church in Aswan province resulting in 25 deaths. Bahá’ís in Egypt have also suffered from decades of discrimination and persecution which has included physical attacks on Bahá’ís and their property, restrictions on registration of marriages, obstruction of funerals, arbitrary detentions, confiscation of Bahá’í literature and inflammatory anti- Bahá’í propaganda and incitement to violence. There remains in place a 1960 Presidential Decree banning all national and local Bahá’í institutions and community activities. This has had the effect of criminalising Bahá’í activities punishable by a minimum of six months imprisonment. Our office also continues to monitor the ongoing issue of the provision of identification cards to Egyptian Bahá’ís.

This period of transition in Egypt provides a unique opportunity for the fundamental right of freedom of religion or belief to be safeguarded and guaranteed as an integral building block of constructing an open and just democratic society. Any scrutiny of the Foreign Office’s work with Egypt should include serious reflection on what practical steps can be taken to ensure that freedom of religion or belief for all Egyptians is meaningfully respected and robustly protected.

Thematic issues of interest

D. Freedom of Religion or Belief

We note the section in the FCO Annual Democracy and Human Rights report on Freedom of Religion or Belief, and we warmly welcome the commitment of the UK government to “…protecting religious freedoms and preventing discrimination on grounds of religion or belief…”

We share the assessment of the FCO that the treatment of religious minorities—whereever they may occur—may be seen not only as distinct human rights concerns, but in fact as a “valuable litmus test” of the wider human rights situation in any given country.

It is therefore to be greatly welcomed that at the first meeting of the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Group on Human Rights in December 2010 “freedom of religion or belief was identified as a key human rights issue.” Commitment to the policy was developed in 2011 when Parliamentary-Under-Secretary of State Alistair Burt “…hosted a Wilton Park conference on ‘Promoting religious freedom around the world’ to discuss how the international community can strengthen its ability to protect religious freedom.” A representative of the Bahá’í community of the UK was able to attend this important conference and offer our thinking on this vital issue.

We welcome the efforts of the FCO to engage with religious leaders to defend publicly the religious freedom of all groups with a view to promoting greater tolerance and respect. Bahá’í representatives remain in contact with Ministers and civil servants on this issue, and we look forward to offering our assistance and participation in this important area of work.

The Bahá’í community of the UK views this period of renewed scrutiny on freedom of religion or belief as an important opportunity for a deeper reflection on the global discourse on this topic. A great deal of thinking is taking place about aspects of freedom of religion or belief but it is taking place in disconnected and disparate fora.

Any deeper examination of freedom of religion or belief requires some reflection on the nature of religion itself. It is common to view religion as a welter of competing sects and denominations, each with its own set of personal beliefs, particular customs and prescribed practices. It is also possible, however, to understand religion as a continually evolving system of knowledge and practice representing the spiritual experience of the human race.

Central to Bahá’í belief is the conviction that social progress relies to a significant degree on the freedom of people to independently search after truth. Belief itself finds expression through culture, community life and collective initiatives dedicated to the common good. Religious freedom is therefore central to human and societal development; denial of religious freedom or religious intolerance—often directed against women and religious minorities—is injurious not only to the individual and his or her family, but ultimately to the fabric of society and the prosperity of the nation.

Protecting religious freedom helps to create the public space for diverse views, whether arising from religious, atheist or agnostic standpoints. Freedom of religion has a bearing on the broader human rights culture of any society.

We welcome the commitment of the FCO to “lobby for changes in discriminatory practices and laws” and its vigilance on concerns raised about “the impact on religious diversity” in the wake of the Arab Spring. It is encouraging to read of the emerging level of international consensus represented in the resolution against religious intolerance adopted at the UN Human Rights Council in March 2011.

One notable omission in the 2011 report is the lack of any reference to the worrying trend of so-called “anti-conversion laws”. Several states, including one listed by the FCO as a “country of concern”, have proposed draft legislation to prevent their citizens from changing their religion. Such legislation has been advanced under the aegis of valid concerns over forced conversion where individuals may change their religious affiliation under duress or through financial and other inducements.

We believe that the FCO should add the issues of anti-conversion or forced conversion laws to its wider work on freedom of religion or belief, and that the UK should maintain scrutiny on such legislation anywhere in the world to ensure that any such law does not undermine the fundamental right of any individual to have, adopt or change to a religion of his or her choice, as provided for in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

The Bahá’í Community of the UK has offered its thinking to the FCO on a range of ideas towards greater policy coherence in the area of freedom of religion or belief. It is suggested the FCO might consider the following steps:

1.The establishment of an Office of Religious Freedom, to be located within the FCO. Such an office, analogous to similar resources established by the United States government, could serve as a knowledge and policy resource.

2.The FCO might also review the 2009 “diplomatic toolkit” on freedom of religion or belief in light of recent developments since the Arab Spring to assist diplomats working on this issue throughout the world.

3.We suggest that the FCO would benefit from an external advisory group with specific expertise in freedom of religion or belief. This body could offer sound knowledge and a familiarity with religion and issues of concern to religious communities to Ministers, diplomats and civil servants for their analysis of incidences, causes and consequences of religious intolerance.

4.We would welcome a separate publication on the state of freedom of religion or belief around the world to provide detailed reporting and analysis of such issues as apostasy, anti-conversion, and blasphemy laws, as well as the broader issues of the persecution of religious minority communities.

E. Concluding Comments

The Bahá’í community of the UK is grateful to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and for the professionalism, commitment and integrity of its Ministers and civil servants. The 2011 Foreign and Commonwealth Office report on Democracy and Human Rights reflects the UK commitment to human rights in a changing world, as most notably demonstrated in the events of the Arab Spring.

We are greatly encouraged to see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office giving greater attention to the right of freedom of religion or belief at a time of an increasing incidence of religious discrimination and persecution throughout the world. The Bahá’í community of the UK stands ready to offer its insights, experience and ideas towards a wider effort to advance universal principle of religious freedom.

30 May 2012