Biography:

On May 4, 2011, Taheri was again arrested and tried under charges of “touching the wrists of female patients,” “blasphemy,” “producing and distributing audio-visual material,” “interfering in medical science,”  “earning illegitimate funds,” and “distribution of audio-visual products and use of academic titles.” On October 30, 2011, he was sentenced to 74 lashes, a fine, and imprisonment.

In August 2015, a Revolutionary Court sentenced Taheri to death for “corruption on earth.” This sentence was overturned by the Iranian Supreme Court in December 2015.

On July 14, 2016, Taheri was temporarily released to attend his daughter’s wedding ceremony for three hours.

In August 2017, an Iranian court again sentenced Taheri to death.

In a retrial on March 3, 2018, Taheri’s death sentence was overturned once more and he was given an additional 5-year sentence.

On April 23, 2019, after nearly eight years imprisonment, Taheri was released. However, he was not permitted to leave his house and was under constant surveillance. He was also forbidden to speak about his religious beliefs.

Mr. Taheri has been granted asylum in Canada. He arrived in Toronto on March 8, 2020.

Biography:

Abdul Shakoor was born February 2, 1937 in Qadian, India.  He is married and the father of five daughters and two sons.  

Before his arrest, Mr. Shakoor was the manager of an optician’s store and bookshop in the main bazaar of Rabwah (also known as Chenab Nagar), Punjab province, Pakistan. The population of the Ahmadiyya community in Rabwah is about 70,000 about 95 percent of the city’s total population. Many view the city as the de facto headquarters of Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya community. 

On December 2, 2015, officials from the Counter Terrorism Department of the Punjab Police and Pakistan’s Elite Force raided the bookshop Mr. Shakoor managed. He was arrested along with the shop’s assistant, Mazhar Abbas – a Shia Muslim – accused of selling an Ahmadiyya commentary on the Qur’an, among other publications. The officials confiscated Ahmadiyya publications during that raid and a later raid that took place on December 9. After their arrest, the two men were held in unknown locations and were not permitted to contact their families.

Mr. Shakoor’s trial was held in the Anti-Terrorism Court in Faisalabad, Punjab province, with the officers who raided the bookstore as the only witnesses. The prosecution entered into evidence a letter that was ostensibly recovered during the December 9 raid from the Ahmadiyya Director of Public Affairs to Mr. Shakoor notifying him that the Punjab province government had banned some Ahmadiyya literature and that he should neither display nor sell the banned literature. Ahmadiyya leaders assert that the prosecution fabricated the letter to support their story, noting that none of the literature cited in the letter was banned until January 20, 2016, after the trial’s conclusion. Mr. Shakoor contended during the trial and maintains the position that he did not distribute any of the literature listed, although he admits to being in possession of some of them.  However, possession of Ahmadiyya literature is not a crime in Pakistan.  

On January 2, 2016, Mr. Shakoor was given a five-year prison sentence for violating article 11-W of the 1997 Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) which involves “printing, publishing, or disseminating any material to incite hatred.” He also was given a three-year sentence for violating article 298-C of the Pakistani Penal Code, for a total of eight years. (Section 298 of Pakistan’s Penal Code criminalizes acts and speech that insult a religion or religious beliefs or defile the Qur’an, the Prophet Muhammad, a place of worship, or religious symbols.) Mazhar Abbas, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for violating article 11-W of the ATA. Mr. Shakoor filed a writ petition for bail and appeal against the verdict with the Lahore High Court. On multiple occasions, the Lahore High Court listed Mr. Shakoor’s appeal on the daily docket, but each time the case was postponed. The last postponed hearing date was believed to be June 22, 2017.  

Mr. Shakoor was released on March 18, 2019.

Biography:

Mahvash Sabet was born on February 4, 1953 in Ardestan, Iran. Ms. Sabet moved to Tehran when she was in the fifth grade and eventually received a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Ms. Sabet married Siyvash Sabet on May 21, 1973 and has a son and daughter.

Ms. Sabet began her career as a teacher and also worked as a principal at several schools.  Like thousands of other Iranian Baha’i educators after the Islamic Revolution, she was fired from her job and barred from working in public education. She then became director at the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, a university established by the Baha’i community in 1987 to meet the educational needs of young people who have been systematically denied access to higher education by the Iranian government.

Ms. Sabet was one of the seven Baha’i leaders who were part of the ad hoc group known as “Yaran” or “Friends.” This group tended to the spiritual and social needs of the Iranian Baha’i community given the absence of formally elected Baha’i leadership. Ms. Sabet was the first of the Baha’i Seven to be arrested on March 5, 2008 after she was apprehended while visiting Mashhad. The Baha’i Seven were placed in solitary confinement for months, and spent a year behind bars without access to legal counsel. In 2010, the seven were tried and convicted of charges of “espionage” and “spreading propaganda against the regime.” They each were sentenced to 20 years in prison, the longest of any current prisoner of conscience in Iran.

In 2013, Iran passed a reformed Islamic Penal Code that stipulated that courts may carry out only the most severe punishment assigned to a prisoner, rather than carrying out multiple, similar punishments for related crimes. In early 2016, the Baha’i 7 were informed that this rule would be applied to their cases, reducing their imprisonment from 20 years to 10 years.

Ms. Sabet was held in Tehran’s Evin prison, along with other female prisoners of conscience, including Fariba Kamalabadi. Ms. Sabet wrote poems about her experiences while in prison, which she composed on scraps of paper and gave to friends and family. In 2013, they were published as a book, Prison Poems.

Mavash Sabet was released in September 2017 after serving her 10-year sentence under false charges.