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May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONMay 30, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett
Editor"s note: Katrina Lantos Swett is the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The views expressed reflect those of USCIRF and not CNN.
With Iran"s presidential election looming next month, ongoing uncertainty about the status of its nuclear program, and questions about the degree of its involvement in Syria"s civil war, it"s easy to forget the domestic repression some groups face under its theocratic regime. But as Baha"i communities across the globe mark a disturbing anniversary in Iran, the birthplace of their faith, they are determined that the rest of the world should also know about the hardship and discrimination they are faced with every single day.
Throughout the month, Baha"is have engaged in a global campaign titled simply "Five Years Too Many,” on behalf of the so-called Baha"is - the Baha"i leaders imprisoned in Iran for the past five years on account of their faith. I was honored to have the opportunity to address gathered supporters earlier this month when the campaign came to Washington, D.C.
To read the entire op-ed please visit CNN World, Global Public Square section.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner please contact USCRIFat (202) 523-3258 or media@uscirf.gov
June 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONJune 26, 2013 |By Katrina Lantos Swett
Editor"s note: Katrina Lantos Swett is the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The views expressed are the writer"s own.
The following op-ed appeared on CNN World/GPS on June 26, 2013.
Fifty years ago today, on June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy stood in West Berlin and condemned the newly erected Berlin Wall. Twenty-four years later, President Ronald Reagan traveled to West Berlin and challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall.”
In the decades between these speeches, human rights and religious freedom advocates behind the Iron Curtain defied the walls of tyranny by relying on the samizdat, a clandestine system to printand distribute government-suppressed material. Today, many use the internet in much the same way, raising both challenges and opportunities as the forces of repression and freedom clash in the virtual and physical worlds.
To read the entire op-ed please visit CNN World/ GPS.
January 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONJanuary 14, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett
The following appeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on January 14, 2013.
Former Soviet prisoner and refusenik Natan Sharansky, Burmese human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, and Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani are some of the many people across the globe who were unjustly imprisoned for their beliefs. Fortunately, these three men and women of conscience are now free. We applaud their lives and the work they have done to advance the cause of freedom and dignity for all.
Unfortunately, many people today are not free but languish in jail cells around the world. They are imprisoned because of who they are, what they believe, and how they have chosen to express their convictions. These prisoners are prevented from enjoying the most fundamental human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international standards.
We must shine a light on these prisoners of conscience until they are free and the countries that keep them in bonds have released them and have implemented needed reforms.
To that end, as Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), I join the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. House of Representatives and Amnesty International, USA in support of our joint Defending Freedoms Project. Through this project, members of Congress will select prisoners across the globe to support, highlight their causes, stand in solidarity with them, and let them and the world community know that they are not alone. In addition, by training a spotlight on the laws and policies that have led to their incarceration, members of Congress will be working both for their release and to hold offending governments accountable.
This new initiative will rely not on laws or customs that are specific to any one country, including our own, but on universal human rights benchmarks to which nearly every nation has assented. It will use the same internationally approved standards, freely agreed upon by most of the same countries which violate them in practice, to hold those states responsible for abusing the innocent.
Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Frank Wolf (R-Va), who have taken the lead in this project, are longtime champions of human rights worldwide. My late father, Tom Lantos, was proud to call them colleagues and friends, and worked closely with them on Capitol Hill for many years.
Sadly, as we survey the global landscape, it is clear that there are walls of tyranny in far too many places, and compared to these barriers, our words and deeds might appear humble indeed. But as the late congressman Jack Kemp once said, "there is a kind of victory in good work, no matter how humble.” And in the words of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, "each time…[we]…strike out against injustice, [we] send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other….those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
Let these memorable words stir our hearts, deepen our commitment, and strengthen our resolve as we open a new chapter in the cause of human rights and universal dignity.
Katrina Lantos Swett is the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). This article is adapted from her December 6, 2012 speech on Capitol Hill at the announcement of the Defending Freedoms Project.
To intervew a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact Samantha Schnitzer at sschnitzer@uscirf.gov or (202) 786-0613.
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs--Iran v. Its People: Abuses Against Religious Minorities
June 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATION6/20/2013|By Katrina Lantos Swett
The following appaeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on June 20, 2013
In an increasingly volatile world, few threats to peace compare to the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iranian government. For the Iranian people, however, the government already is at war and its enemy is their human rights. Iran’s leaders continue to rank among the world’s most serious religious freedom abusers, engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of the fundamental right to freedom of religion or belief. Each year since 1999, the United States has designated Iran a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) based on recommendation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Katrina Lantos Swett is currently the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). She established the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice in 2008 and serves as its President and Chief Executive Officer. She also teaches human rights and American foreign policy at Tufts University. Previously, she worked on Capitol Hill as Deputy Counsel to the Criminal Justice Sub-Committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee for then Senator Joe Biden. Dr. Swett holds a B.A. from Yale University, a J.D. from the University of California, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Southern Denmark.
Iran is a theocracy with a constitution that proclaims the Twelver (Shi’i) Jaafari School of Islam to be the official religion of the country. The head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and directly controls the armed forces, the internal security forces, and the judiciary. All legislation passed by the Majles (parliament) is reviewed for adherence to Islamic and constitutional principles by the Guardian Council, six of whose 12 members are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Guardian Council also screens and disqualifies candidates for all elective offices based on vague and arbitrary requirements, including candidates’ ideological and religious beliefs. Disputes over legislation between the parliament and the Guardian Council are adjudicated by the Expediency Council, an advisory body appointed by the Supreme Leader. Five seats in the parliament are reserved for recognized religious minorities, two for Armenian Christians, one for Assyrian Christians, and one each for Jews and Zoroastrians.
According the government, about 90 percent of Iranians are Shi’i Muslims and approximately 4 to 8 percent adhere to Sunni Islam, with the rest of the population being either Sufi Muslims or members of non-Muslim religious minorities. Baha’is remain the largest non-Muslim minority group, followed by Christians. Besides Muslims, the government extends official recognition to Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians based on theological criteria. The government reserves some of its most brutal persecution for Baha’is and other groups who remain unrecognized.
Manifestations of Iran’s religious freedom violations range from daily acts of discrimination to severe punishments including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based upon the religion of the accused. By any measure, these abuses have been accelerating in recent years. In June 2009, Iranian citizens protested en masse against the legitimacy of President Ahmadinejad’s re-election—displaying the breadth and depth of opposition on political, ideological, human rights, and religious freedom grounds—and the government of Iran issued a brutal response. Since then, human rights and religious freedom conditions have descended to levels not seen since the current regime forcibly instituted its vision of Shi’a Islam after the 1979 revolution. Dozens have been killed and thousands arrested, convicted, and given lengthy prison terms; meanwhile, charges such as “waging war against God,” “spreading corruption on earth,” and “moral corruption” have led to several executions.
Freedom for Iranians of all religions and beliefs, and those who reject any religion, has been impaired; however, Iran’s religious minorities—including Baha’is and even the officially recognized Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, and Sufi and Sunni Muslims—have borne the brunt of the oppression.
In March 2011, the UN Human Rights Council created a Special Rapporteur position for Iran—which had not existed since 2002—to investigate and report on the government’s human rights abuses, a longstanding USCIRF recommendation. In August 2011, Ahmed Shaheed, the former Maldivian foreign minister, began his new role as Special Rapporteur. The Iranian government has failed to respond to his request to visit Iran, and various officials have said publicly that he would never be permitted in the country.
On February 28, 2013, the Special Rapporteur released his most recent report to the UNHRC which focused on a wide range of violations, including those faced by Baha’is, Christians, Sufi and Sunni Muslims, and dissident Shi’i Muslims, and included a detailed list of Baha’is and Christians in prison. In this report, he wrote that he remains “deeply concerned about the human rights situation facing religious minorities in Iran.”
In October 2012, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had issued his annual report on Iran’s human rights situation, which included details of abuses, such as arbitrary detentions and false imprisonment, against religious minorities, particularly Baha’is and Christians.
In December 2012, for the 10th year in a row, the U.S. government co-sponsored and supported a successful UN General Assembly resolution on human rights in Iran, which passed 86 to 32, with 65 abstentions. The resolution condemned the Iranian government’s poor human rights record, including its continued targeting of religious minorities.
By any measure, Iran’s religious freedom environment, especially for its religious minority communities, remains poor. What follows is an analysis of their plight and USCIRF’s key recommendations on how to respond.
Activity against Sunni and Sufi Muslims
Among Iran’s religious minorities are several of the country’s ethnic minorities—Arabs, Baluchis, Kurds, and Turkmen—who practice Sunni Islam. These groups are discriminated against on two counts: ethnic identity and faith. Sunni leaders regularly are intimidated and harassed by intelligence and security services and report widespread official discrimination. The Sunni community also faces discrimination in government employment, particularly in leadership positions in the executive and judicial branches.
Sunni leaders have reported widespread abuses and restrictions on their religious practice, including detentions and abuse of clerics and bans on Sunni teachings in public schools and Sunni religious literature, and Sunni mosques have been destroyed in eastern Iran. In recent years, dozens of Sunni clerics reportedly were arrested for spreading Sunni teachings.
Iran’s government has also been stepping up its harassment and arrests of its Sufi Muslim minority, including prominent leaders, while increasing restrictions on places of worship and destroying Sufi prayer centers and hussainiyas (meeting halls).
Over the past few years, authorities have attacked or demolished prayer centers and have detained hundreds of Sufis, sentencing many to imprisonment, fines, and floggings. In September and October 2011, for example, a Sufi from the Gonabadi order was killed and several were injured during a government crackdown in Fars province in southwestern Iran, during which the Basij militia arrested at least 60 Sufis. At least seven remain in detention. Four attorneys who defended Sufi leaders in court were arrested in September 2011, and three of them continue to be held in Evin Prison on charges of insulting the Supreme Leader, “spreading lies,” and holding membership in a “deviant group.” Iranian state television regularly airs programs denigrating and demonizing Sufism.
Persecution of Baha’is
Among Iran’s non-Muslim religious minority communities, the Baha’i community is the “most persecuted religious minority in Iran,” according to Ahmed Shaheed. Iranian authorities view Baha’is, who number at least 300,000, as “heretics” to be repressed on apostasy grounds. Since 1979, these authorities have killed more than 200 Baha’i leaders and dismissed more than 10,000 from government and university jobs. In the past two years alone, incidences of harsh treatment against Baha’is—including increasing numbers of arrests and detentions and violent attacks on private homes and personal property—have increased in number. The Baha’i community faces additional economic pressure as authorities often pressure private employers of Baha’is to fire them and as Baha’is are regularly denied business licenses.
Baha’is may not establish places of worship, schools, or any independent religious associations in Iran. They are barred from the military and are denied government jobs and pensions as well as the right to inherit property. In addition, their marriages and divorces are not recognized, and they have difficulty obtaining death certificates. Baha’i cemeteries, holy places, and community properties often are seized or desecrated, and many of their important religious sites have been destroyed.
Emboldened by Iranian law and policy, militant societal actors have physically attacked Baha’is and have vandalized Baha’i homes and businesses with impunity. In the city of Rafsanjan, a recent wave of arson attacks on Baha’i-owned businesses appears to be part of a campaign to fracture relationships between the local Baha’is and Muslims. Since October 2010, dozens of shops have been attacked and more than 20 Baha’i homes and businesses have received letters warning that Baha’is will suffer severe consequences for forming friendships with Muslims.
A March 2013 report released by the Baha’i International Community notes that more than 660 Baha’is have been arrested since 2005. By the end of 2012, at least 110 Baha’is were being held in prison solely due to their religious beliefs, ten times the number incarcerated in 2005. Dozens of Baha’is await trial while others have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 90 days to several years. Human rights groups report that more than 500 Baha’is have active cases pending against them, despite having been released from detention. In at least three recent cases, Iranian authorities have incarcerated young infants along with their Baha’i mothers, subjecting the babies to great health risk.
Several articles in media outlets such as government-controlled newspaper Kayhan, whose managing editor is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have vilified and demonized the Baha’i faith and community. An October 2011 report by the Baha’i International Communitysummarized the relentless propaganda against the Baha’is as follows:
“They are accused of being agents for various imperialist or colonialist factions; they face continuous but utterly unfounded allegations of immorality; they are branded as social pariahs to be shunned. The propaganda is shocking in its volume and vehemence, its scope and sophistication, cynically calculated to stir up antagonism against a peaceful religious community whose members are striving to contribute to the well-being of their society.”
The Iranian government bars Baha’i youth from undergraduate or graduate studies since it does not formally recognize their religion. In addition to these formal restrictions, Iranian authorities have recently conducted raids in at least four different cities. They raided more than 30 homes of Baha’is involved with the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), making arrests and confiscating books, documents, computers, and other materials. While several Baha’is were released shortly after being detained, seven were tried and found guilty of membership in a deviant sect conspiring against Iran’s national security; they were given prison sentences of either four- or five-year terms. Since 2008, seven additional Baha’i leaders—“the Baha’i Seven”—have been jailed by the government based on an assortment of dubious charges ranging from espionage to “corruption on the earth.” Their attorneys, including Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, reiterate that the charges against them are baseless.
Persecution of Christians
Besides its severe mistreatment of Baha’is, Iran’s government also continues to repress Christians—particularly Evangelicals and other Protestants—who are subject to harassment, arrests, close surveillance, and imprisonment. Based on numerous interviews with Iranian converts to Christianity, lawyers, activists, and journalists, an unprecedented report released in January by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran meticulously documents a pattern of abuse that extends to all Protestants in Iran. It concludes that Christian converts face severe restrictions on religious practice and association, arbitrary arrests and detentions for practicing their faith, and violations of the right to life through state execution for apostasy and extrajudicial killings. As a result of their plight, many Christians have reportedly fled from Iran.
In September 2012, Ahmed Shaheed reported that more than 300 Christians have been arrested and detained arbitrarily since 2010.
After two years in jail, Christian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy in November 2011. Though he had never been a Muslim as an adult, Iranian prosecutors applied the apostasy law because of his Islamic ancestry. Rejecting his appeal in June 2011, the court suspended the sentence contingent upon his recanting his faith, which he refused to do during hearings in September. Facing mounting international pressure over his plight, officials released Nadarkhani in 2012, only to rearrest him on Christmas, and then release him again in January 2013.
In a particularly outrageous miscarriage of justice, Judge Pir-Abassi, a jurist notorious for perpetrating religious freedom violations, on 27 January 2013 sentenced Saeed Abedini, an Iranian-born American pastor, to eight years in prison for “threatening the national security of Iran.” His alleged crimes included his participation since 2000 in Iran’s house church movement and his more recent efforts to raise money for an orphanage. Human rights groups hold that his trial was unfair and the whole legal process deeply flawed. Reportedly, he has spent many weeks in solitary confinement in Evin Prison where he has suffered mental and physical abuse by authorities.
Five Iranians who converted to Christianity recently went on trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court. They were arrested in October 2012 on “evangelism” and other charges after security forces in the city of Shiraz raided a house church during a prayer session. The five men are members of the Church of Iran, one of the country’s largest house church movements. On 8 February 2012, Iranian authorities raided a house church gathering in Shiraz, confiscated religious materials, and arrested 10 Christian converts, four of whom remain in detention without charge.
Status of Zoroastrians, Sabean Mandaeans, and Jews
Like Christians, members of Iran’s Zoroastrian community are considered protected religious minorities yet suffer increased repression and discrimination. In August 2011, a Zoroastrian man, Mohsen Sadeghipour, began serving a four-and-a-half year prison term after being charged and convicted of propaganda of the Zoroastrian faith. Several of his relatives were convicted and imprisoned in 2010 on blasphemy and other charges.
Over the past few years, the Sabean Mandaean religious community, whose members, like Baha’is, are unprotected, have been facing intensifying official harassment. There continue to be reports that members, who number between 5,000 and 10,000, experience societal discrimination and pressure to convert to Islam, and they are often denied access to higher education. In recent years, hundreds of Sabean Mandaean families have reportedly fled the country.
While Jews in Iran hold the same protected religious minority status as Christians and Zoroastrians, government discrimination continues to be pervasive, fostering a threatening atmosphere for the approximately 20,000-25,000-member Jewish community, the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside of Israel.
Official Iranian policies promoting anti-Semitism have risen sharply in recently years, and Jews have been targeted on the basis of perceived ties to Israel. President Ahmadinejad and other top political and religious leaders made public remarks denying the Holocaust and calling for the elimination of the state of Israel. There has continued to be officially-sanctioned anti-Semitic propaganda, involving official statements, media outlets, publications, and books. Recently a prominent newspaper held a Holocaust denial cartoon contest and the government sponsored a Holocaust denial conference; meanwhile, numerous programs on state-run television regularly broadcast anti-Semitic messages, and anti-Semitic cartoons show demonic and stereotypical images of Jews and Jewish symbols.
According to the State Department, education of Jewish children has become increasingly difficult in recent years, and distribution of Hebrew religious texts is strongly discouraged.
Recommendations
Given Iran’s abysmal human rights and religious freedom record, how should the United States respond? It should continue to work closely with its European and other allies, in bilateral and multilateral fora, to apply pressure on the Iranian government through advocacy, diplomacy, and targeted sanctions with the aim of halting the government’s human rights and religious freedom violations.
To that end, USCIRF recommends that the United States continue to designate Iran as a “Country of Particular Concern” or CPC, confirming it as among the world’s worst violators of freedom of religion or belief.
The United States also should call on Iran’s government to release all prisoners who have been jailed on account of their religion or belief, and drop all charges against those who have cases pending against them.
Further, Washington should continue to identify Iranian government officials and agencies responsible for particularly severe violations of religious freedom, including but not limited to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Finally, the United States should continue to bar from entry into the United States and freeze the assets of any Iranian government official identified as having engaged in particularly severe religious freedom violations.
Conclusion
Absent continued pressure on the Iranian government, little is likely to change, including the regime’s mistreatment of Iranians who dare to dissent from its theocratic dictates and policies. Given the enormous power concentrated by law and fact in the hands of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and like-minded clerics, the long-term outcome of Iran’s recent presidential election probably will be business as usual, unless the mullahs decide that change is required for their survival.
Meanwhile, especially for the nation’s persecuted religious minorities, the status quo is intolerable. Iran’s abuses against religious freedom and its unrelenting crackdown on religious minorities demand the world’s attention and action.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONMay 28, 2015 | Katrina Lantos Swett & Robert P. George
The following op-ed appeared in Deseret News on May 28, 2015
“We do not jail people for their opinions.”
So insisted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in his April 27 interview with American journalist Charlie Rose.
Zarif has since claimed he was speaking about imprisoned journalist Jason Rezaian, an American citizen Iran is about to try on trumped-up charges which include espionage.
Whether Rezaian is being jailed for an opinion is at best unclear. What is clear is that the foreign minister’s statement is as believable as the charges against Rezaian, which the Washington Post, his current employer, the U.S. government and human rights groups rightly deem absurd.
Of course Iran jails people for their opinions, especially when they challenge Tehran’s religious orthodoxy.
Just ask Pastor Saeed Abedini, another American citizen serving an eight-year prison term since January 2013 for “threatening national security” by facilitating religious gatherings in Christian homes.
And ask the seven Baha’i leaders who as of this month have been imprisoned for seven years: Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Vahid Tizfahm, Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet.
As Iran’s largest non-Muslim minority, now numbering more than 300,000, Baha’is believe their founder received a divine revelation more than a millennium after the Quran. No religious group in Iran suffers more. They are anathema to a government that has been imposing its own interpretation of Shiite Islam on Iran since the 1978 Islamic Revolution brought it to power.
Authorities have since killed more than 200 Baha’i leaders, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university jobs. Baha’is are effectively barred from attending university, starting their own schools or houses of worship, serving in the military and obtaining various forms of employment. Even their marriages are unrecognized.
Since 2005, more than 750 Baha’is have been arrested, including dozens over the past year, and as of February 2015, more than 100 remain imprisoned. In April 2014, authorities began destroying a historic Baha’i cemetery in Shiraz. In October, nearly 80 Baha’i-owned shops in Kerman Province forcibly were closed.
Last year alone, pro-government print and media outlets published nearly 4,000 anti-Baha’i articles. An October 2011 report by the Baha’i International Community summarized the government’s relentless propaganda and negative portrayal of Baha’is as follows:
“They are accused of being agents for … imperialist … factions; they face … utterly unfounded allegations of immorality; they are branded as social pariahs. … The propaganda is shocking in its volume and vehemence, its scope and sophistication, cynically calculated to stir up antagonism against a peaceful religious community whose members are striving to contribute to the well-being of their society.”
Acts of anti-Baha’i violence are not uncommon and often go unprosecuted. For example, no one has been charged for the stabbing of three Baha’is in February 2014.
As Pastor Abedini’s case illustrates, members of religious minorities other than the Baha’is also face imprisonment and other forms of persecution. Since 2010, authorities arbitrarily have arrested and detained more than 500 Christians. As of February of this year, about 90 Christians either were jailed, detained or awaiting trial due to their religious beliefs and activities, with assaults and beatings common.
Muslims face jail time as well. According to an October 2014 U.N. report on human rights in Iran, 150 Sunni Muslims are incarcerated based on charges related to religious beliefs, with more than 30 on death row. Over the past year, authorities also have detained hundreds of Sufi Muslims, sentencing many to imprisonment, fines and floggings. Not even majority Shiite Muslims are exempt. Dissident Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Kazemeni Boroujerdi continues to serve an 11-year prison sentence and has suffered physical and mental abuse while jailed.
President Obama has rightly called for releasing Jason Rezaian, as well as Pastor Abedini. Washington should renew that call now. Iran’s foreign minister has now unwittingly spotlighted others unjustly jailed, including the Baha’i Seven. We hope the president and the world community will call for their freedom as well.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov or 202-786-0613.
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
May 13, 2016 | Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op/ed appeared in Religion News Service on May 13, 2016
(RNS) The eighth anniversary this Saturday (May 14) of Iran’s imprisonment of seven Baha’i leaders is an opportune time to refocus attention on the plight of their people.
Dominated by an extremist interpretation of Shiite Islam, Iran’s government has a long-term goal to eradicate the more than 300,000-member Baha’i community, the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. While pursuit of that goal remains, its intensity ebbs and flows in response to the level of world attention and outrage. Unfortunately, there are signs from this past year that persecution is on the upswing, calling for greater world outrage at Iran’s abuses of this peaceful religious community.
Since Iran’s Khomeini revolution of 1979, authorities have killed more than 200 Baha’i leaders, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university jobs.
Baha’is effectively are prohibited from attending colleges, chartering their own worship centers or schools, serving in the military, and obtaining various kinds of jobs.
Even Baha’i marriages are not recognized.
Over the past 10 years, about 850 Baha’is arbitrarily have been arrested. As of February 2016, more than 80 remain imprisoned, including the Baha’i Seven — Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Vahid Tizfahm, Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet.
According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on which we serve, there were ominous signs of a renewed government crackdown over the past year. In Tehran and other municipalities, Baha’i homes have been ransacked, Baha’i-owned shops closed, Baha’i religious materials confiscated and Baha’i members arrested. In January 2016 alone, 24 Baha’is in the Golestan province were sentenced to prison terms of up to 11 years simply for engaging in the religious activities of their faith.
Iran’s government also continues to issue a steady drumbeat of propaganda that demonizes and dehumanizes its Baha’i population. In 2014 alone, pro-government media and print outlets published nearly 4,000 anti-Baha’i articles in which Baha’is typically are portrayed as immoral traitors, agents of foreign powers, and strangers and aliens who don’t belong in the country.
The government’s demonization of Baha’is predictably creates a climate conducive to acts of violence against them that often are not prosecuted.
This is not to say that the Iranian government only targets Baha’is. Christians and members of other religious minorities also face persecution, including jail time. Since 2010, authorities arbitrarily have arrested and detained more than 550 Christians throughout the country. Over the past year, there were numerous reports of authorities raiding church services, threatening church members, and arresting and incarcerating worshippers and church leaders, particularly evangelical Christian converts.
Jews and Zoroastrians also face official discrimination, and the government continues to foster anti-Semitism. Among Muslims, Iran’s government has imposed harsh sentences on prominent reformers from the Shiite majority community; imprisoned about 150 Sunni Muslims on charges relating to their beliefs and religious activities; and harassed and incarcerated members of the Sufi Muslim community.
But what distinguishes mistreatment of the Baha’is is the stark evidence that eradication is the goal. From laws that push Baha’is to the margins of society to government-sponsored propaganda that degrades and dehumanizes, from mass detention and imprisonment to the closing of businesses, from allowing societal violence against Baha’is to failure to prosecute perpetrators, all signs suggest that Iran’s government seeks religious cleansing of this community.
Responding to pressure from the United States and the world community, Iran in January released Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor. It is time to demand that Iran do likewise to all religious prisoners, including the Baha’i Seven and the imprisoned Baha’i educators, and other prisoners of conscience. It is time for Iran to abandon its terrible goal of eradicating its Baha’i community and instead treat its members with the dignity and respect they deserve as human beings and citizens. It is time for Iran to uphold the right to religious freedom for each and every Iranian.
(Robert P. George is chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; Katrina Lantos Swett is a USCIRF Commissioner)
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov or 202-786-0615.
December 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
December 11, 2013 | By Katrina Lantos Swett and Mary Ann Glendon
The following op-ed appeared in Reuters & the Chicago Tribune on December 10, 2013.
December 10 marks Human Rights Day, the 65th anniversary of the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), signed by 48 nations - with just eight abstentions.
Sixty-five years ago, naysayers insisted it was nobody else's business how governments behaved within their borders.The declaration confronted this cynical view - and continues to do so today.Human rights abuses and their consequences spill beyond national borders, darkening prospects for harmony and stability across the globe.Freedom of religion or belief, as well as other human rights, are essential to peace and security.They are everyone's business.
Each signatory nation pledged to honor and protect these rights. For example, the declaration provides the foundation for much of the agenda of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on which we serve.
Yet 75 percent of the world's population now lives in countries in which this freedom is highly restricted, according to a recent Pew study .
These include countries like Saudi Arabia, which abstained, as well as many that signed the declaration, including China, Iran and Nigeria.
Saudi Arabia originally refused to endorse the declaration, in part because of its ban on all public religious expression besides its own extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam. The Kingdom not only continues on this path, but has exported its religious ideology to other nations, fueling religious freedom abuses, including violence. To grasp the security implications of this approach, Americans need only recall that 15 of the 19 attackers on September 11 were Saudi nationals.
All but one of the other abstaining nations comprised the old Soviet Union or its satellites, long notorious violators of religious liberty and other human rights. Today, Russia continues to engage in serious abuses, as Moscow passes extremism laws against certain Muslim groups and "non-traditional” religious communities, particularly Jehovah's Witnesses. The government orchestrates raids, detains and imprisons people who practice these religions. Mass human rights violations also continue in the North Caucasus region.
Another serious problem, however, are nations that signed the declaration but continue to abuse religious freedom.
In China, the government is persecuting Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims. Beijing is repressing and arresting leaders as well as members of independent Catholic and Protestant churches, shuttering their places of worship and imposing long prison sentences. It is also perpetrating forced renunciations and acts of torture on members of the Falun Gong and other groups deemed "evil cults.”
In Myanmar, the military government's celebrated political reforms have yet to improve religious freedom. Sectarian violence continues with impunity against ethnic minority Christians and Muslims. The plight of the persecuted Rohingya Muslims, for example, is a tragedy.
Egypt, another signatory, also has a history of repressing religious minorities, which continued during the administrations of both Hosni Mubarak and Mohamed Morsi. Cairo did not protect Coptic Christians from violence , while prosecuting and jailing Christians and others for "defamation” of religion.
Iran also continues to detain, torture and even kill members of religious minority groups, including Baha'is and Christians, whose beliefs are viewed as a fundamental threat to the theocratic state and its interpretation of Shi'ite Islam. It is still using terrorism to export its extremism.
The Nigerian government, another signatory, has failed to bring to justice the perpetrators of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians, which has claimed the lives of more than 14,000 Nigerians since 1999. It has not countered the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, which also fuels sectarian fires.
Pakistan is another signatory facing a rise in sectarian violence. Religious liberty abuses have increased to unprecedented levels. Sunni extremists are targeting religious minorities, including Shi"ites, Christians and Ahmadis. Pakistan's government helps fuel the bloodshed through its anti-blasphemy laws, which foster vigilante violence against perceived transgressors.
These countries have not only betrayed the commitment made in 1948; they have done nothing to advance peace and security within or beyond their borders.
Indeed, study after study confirms that countries that do not protect freedom of conscience produce strife and instability, including terrorism.
The United States and the entire world community have an enormous stake in upholding the UDHR's human rights principles - including religious freedom. On this Human Rights Day, it is time to reaffirm the declaration by holding its signatories accountable.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at 202-786-0613 or media@uscirf.gov.
December 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013
FOR YOUR INFORMATIONDecember 30, 2013 | By Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett
The following op-ed appeared in Real Clear World on December 28, 2013.
December 28, 2013 - With the approach of a new year comes the hope of peace among and within nations. But as our nation explores peace on the nuclear front with Tehran, members of Iran 's diaspora community in the United States and other concerned Americans must wonder when Iran will cease its war against its own people and their rights, including freedom of conscience and religion.
Consider the eight-year jail sentence handed down in January, upheld in September and imposed without due process on the Iranian-born American citizen, Pastor Saeed Abedini. His crime? Somehow, he was "threatening national security" through his involvement in Iran's house church movement. After holding Abedini in solitary confinement in Evin prison, Tehran compounded the injustice, transferring him last month to the forbiddingly harsh Gohardasht prison.
The outrage perpetrated against Abedini reflects Iran's misconduct against religious minorities, especially Christians and Baha'is, but also Zoroastrians, Jews and Sufi and Sunni Muslims, as well as majority Shi'a dissenters. It is with good reason that, since 1999, the United States has designated Iran a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), marking it a world-class religious freedom violator.
Today, decades after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, the regime's radically theocratic character is unchanged. Any Iranian dissenting from its interpretation of Shi'a Islam may be branded an enemy of the state and a potential target for abuse, including detention, torture, imprisonment and even execution. The UN Special Rapporteur's October report found that since 2010 more than 300 Christians have been arrested and detained; as of July, at least 20 Christians were detained or imprisoned.
While all of Iran's Christians face a regime that restricts their rights, Tehran reserves some of its harshest treatment for Protestants. Next to the Baha'is, authorities view the Protestant community, comprised largely of evangelically minded individuals, as their most serious spiritual competitor for Iranian hearts and minds.
The vast majority of Iran's Protestants are, like Abedini, converts from Islam. While conversion to or from a faith is an internationally guaranteed right, Iran's leaders deem conversion from Islam an act of apostasy against Islam and Iran's character as an Islamic state, punishable by death. Revolutionary courts also charge converts with political crimes such as harming national security or contact with a foreign enemy. These courts apply such unfounded charges to innocent religious activities such as meetings with foreign Christians, associations with overseas Christian organizations or attending Christian seminars outside of Iran.
Despite talk of reform since Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, took office in August, Baha'i and Christian prisoners remain in jail and a crackdown on Protestant Christians has brought a new wave of arrests. Conditions are at levels not seen since the early years of the revolution.
In the face of these abuses, what can the United States do?
First, it must keep Iran a Country of Particular Concern.
Further, Congress should reauthorize for multiple years, and President Obama should then sign into law, the Lautenberg Amendment, a lifeline for Iranian religious minorities seeking refuge in the United States.
Tehran must release Pastor Abedini and all other prisoners whose only "crime" is exercising their right to freedom of conscience and religion. We invite members of Congress to join the Defending Freedoms Project, an initiative of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in conjunction with USCIRF and Amnesty International, and "adopt" prisoners of conscience, including Iranian prisoners, becoming their voice and spotlighting Tehran's tyranny.
Finally, as it highlights the innocent, Washington must do more to call out the regime's guilty parties, starting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It should bar them from the country and freeze their assets. At this point, the European Union is outpacing the United States in sanctioning these abusers. Earlier this month, White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice said, "Our sanctions on Iran's human rights abusers will continue and so will our support for the fundamental rights of all Iranians." These promising words must translate into concrete deeds by our Treasury and State departments.
No government has the right to make war on anyone's conscience. As the New Year approaches, Pastor Abedini and others belong at home with their spouses and children, not in a jail cell for following the call of conscience.
Washington must tell Tehran: Prove your peaceful intentions abroad by ceasing your war against conscience at home.
Katrina Lantos Swett is the Vice Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov or 202-786-0613.
December 09, 2016
Dec 9, 2016
The following op-ed appeared in Religion New Service on December 9, 2016
By former USCIRF Commissioners Kristina Arriaga and John Ruskay
Pwint Phyu Latt is a Muslim peace activist in Burma who sought to promote interfaith relations with Buddhists, the nation’s religious majority. She was sentenced this year to two years in prison and two more years of hard labor.
Gulmira Imin is a Uighur Muslim in China who led the 2009 Uighur protests against its communist government. She has been in prison ever since.
Maryam Naghash Zargaran is a Christian in Iran who converted from Islam and worked with pastor Saeed Abedini prior to his incarceration and release. She was released briefly and returned to prison this year after serving three years of a four-year sentence.
Mahvash Sabet, a school principal, and Fariba Kamalabadi, a developmental psychologist, are Baha’is in Iran. Arrested in 2008, they and five other leaders known as the Baha’i Seven were given 20-year sentences based on false charges such as espionage.
Mehrinisso Hamdamova was a teacher of Islam to women in Uzbekistan. She was sentenced in 2010 to a seven-year prison term in a labor camp for the “crime” of private teaching about religion and reportedly suffers from cancer.
As members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, we stand in solidarity with these and other religious prisoners of conscience.
We reaffirm our stand Saturday (Dec. 10) — Human Rights Day — as we commemorate the U.N. General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We stand for the inalienable human right, affirmed in Article 18 of the declaration, of these prisoners, and indeed all people, to freedom of conscience and religion. And we invite others in the human rights community to stand with us, join with us and call for their release.
In highlighting these six prisoners today, our aim is twofold. We want to spotlight their plight and their countries’ appalling religious freedom abuses. And by focusing on these women, we seek to provide real-life examples of how in many parts of the world, the lack of religious freedom disempowers women.
Clearly, all of their countries are serious religious freedom violators.
In Burma, Buddhist state and nonstate actors target ethnic and religious minorities, from Rohingya and other Muslims to Christians.
China’s regime has cracked down on Uighur Muslims observing Ramadan, torn down churches and crosses, targeted the Falun Gong, repressed Tibetan Buddhists and jailed, tortured and harvested organs from prisoners.
Iran’s government has detained, tortured and even executed opponents of its interpretation of Shiite Islam and has targeted religious minorities, from Baha’is to Christians to Sunni Muslims.
And Uzbekistan severely restricts all independent religious activity and imprisons many thousands of individuals it claims to be religious extremists.
USCIRF has recommended and the U.S. State Department has designated all of these nations as “countries of particular concern,” marking them as among the world’s worst religious freedom violators.
It is no secret that these nations reserve their worst abuses not just for the religious groups they harass, but for individuals who either lead these groups or who boldly and publicly live out their teachings as their conscience dictates.
Pwint Phyu Latt, Gulmira Imin, Maryam Naghash Zargaran, Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi and Mehrinisso Hamdamova are such individuals.
These women were acting on their convictions and pursuing their aspirations as human beings. Once authorities intervened, denying them their full exercise of freedom of conscience and religion, that process was abruptly halted.
Human rights supporters, particularly advocates for the rights of women, can advance their cause when they join with supporters of religious liberty. Indeed, religious freedom, rightly understood, affirms women precisely by affirming their right to choose what to believe and how to live. To protect religious freedom is allow women to pursue a path toward fulfilling their deepest potential.
As we mark Human Rights Day, we call on supporters of freedom of religion or belief and advocates for the empowerment of women to recognize the ties that bind us. Let us call for the release of these six female prisoners of conscience and others, and for governments to honor religious freedom and the full panoply of related human rights for the benefit of their people.
August 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018
This op-ed originally appeared in The Globe Post on September 18, 2018.
By former Commission Chair Daniel Mark
Hamed bin Haydara, a leader of the Baha’i faith in Yemen, has been imprisoned since 2013 over charges of apostasy and insulting the Islam. He has reportedly been tortured and denied both medical and legal assistance. Over the past five years, his trial date has repeatedly been postponed, raising and dashing the hopes of his community. When the Houthi courts of northern Yemen finally issued a ruling on January 2, 2018, their decision brought shock, not relief. Not only is bin Haydara sentenced to public execution, but the country’s Baha’i institutions are to be legally disbanded, leaving the community leaderless and in fear of further persecution.
Tragically, in the five months since this blatant act of religious persecution, conditions for Baha’is in Yemen have worsened, prompting the U.S. State Department to issue a statement in May condemning “actions and rhetoric by Houthi leaders [that] exemplify the vilification and oppression of the Baha’is in Yemen” and calling on the Houthis to “end their unacceptable treatment of Baha’is” and to “allow the Baha’i community to practice their religion without fear of intimidation or reprisals.”
This comes following a baseless claim by the leader of the oppressive Houthi regime that Christians, Baha’is, Ahmadi Muslims, and other religious minorities are waging a “Satanic war” against Muslim Yemenis. He urged his followers to engage in cultural and religious warfare against these religious minorities and since, Houthi authorities have organized official training on fighting this “soft war.” Houthi-affiliated media and clerics have also warned of the dangers posed by Baha’is, and a prominent Houthi activist has called for the slaughter of all Baha’is.
This escalation of hateful rhetoric conjures up frightening memories of what Baha’is in Iran faced immediately after the 1979 revolution: nearly 200 Baha’i leaders were executed, and thousands were imprisoned. A 1991 Iranian government memo called for the eradication of Baha’is, not only in Iran but beyond its borders. Nearly four decades later, the execution of this policy continues and has now spread to Yemen.
Houthi forces have been receiving training and political support from Iran since the early days of the Yemeni conflict. After taking control of northern Yemen, they arrested dozens of Baha’i youth at a 2016 meeting and issued arrest orders without cause for more than 20 Baha’i leaders and teachers in April 2017. Local sources have reported that Iranian authorities are directing the Houthis in this crackdown, and there can be no doubt of the similarity in rhetoric: both the Iranian government and the Houthi authorities deny that the Baha’i faith is a religion at all, rather, a heretical “sect” or “movement.”
At the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan government agency tasked with monitoring and advising the State Department, Congress, and Administration on violations of freedom of conscience, we strenuously denounce the death sentence issued to bin Haydara and the threats issued against Baha’is and other religious minorities in Yemen. We join the State Department and organizations worldwide in calling upon the Houthi authorities to immediately release bin Haydara and the other five Baha’is who are imprisoned in northern Yemen solely for their beliefs.
Many of the young Baha’is of Iran who are today denied education and employment have never known a world in which they were not demonized by the government ruling their country; we cannot let the same fate befall the Baha’is of Yemen.
Daniel Mark is a former U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom commissioner and is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at Villanova University.