Iran Press Watch: The Baha'i Community |
| Zhinous Sobhani and Citizenship Rights Posted: 29 Jan 2009 02:21 PM PST By Taqi Rahmani Zhinous Sobhani has been arrested. Those who believe in their own humanity don't oppress the weak. But in the calculus of power there is no such consideration. To oppress the weak, to create diversions and to make excuses are tools of those in power, who believe that by such means they can remain in power. Zhinous Sobhani worked in the office of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights. The present author met Sobhani when I visited the office of the Center for Defenders [of Human Rights]. She was a refined and elegant lady who carried out her duties in an excellent manner. It has been announced that Zhinous Sobhani has been arrested and that she is a Baha'i. But what is the real political scenario? Before exploring the political games that are being played, allow me to make several points. In accordance with all civil laws and the nation's Constitution, anyone born in Iran is an Iranian. According to the same law, every Iranian has the right to receive education, work, own property, etc.
Zhinous Sobhani was born after the revolution. She was born into a Baha'i family. The Islamic Republic's laws do not state that a Baha'i family is not Iranian. Many Iranians are born in a Muslim family and retain that religion. The present laws of the Islamic Republic provide Zhinous Sobhani with certain rights whose violation, in truth, constitutes a violation of the laws of the land. From another angle, she is a lady in need of work to support herself and was hired as a secretary at the Center for Defenders [of Human Rights]. No provision has been made in the constitution of the Center and its employment guidelines to inquire about the applicant's religious beliefs and or ask about his or her ideology. Nor did she have a role in the Center's strategic development and positions. … Even if we were to suppose that she had promoted her religion, she did not commit a crime, despite the fact that the autocrats and those in power view such acts as a felony. One must ask: Has Ms. Sobhani truly committed a crime? She was just an employee at the Center for Defenders [of Human Rights] and performed clerical work there. If that is a crime, then it must clearly be announced that no Baha'i in Iran has the right to work – something which of a certainty is an impossibility. Such an act cannot be carried out by legal proceedings or governmental action, because there cannot be second- or third- or tenth-class citizens. Even those citizens must have the right to work and possess sufficient liberty to pursuit an unhindered life. In other words, both the powerful and also lowly people like me have the right to exist and prosper. Therefore, Mrs. Sobhani's arrest on the charge of working in the Center for Defenders of Human Rights means that the authorities do not recognize her right to earn a living as a citizen, which deprives her of her right to citizenship guaranteed by the laws. Why was Zhinous Sobhani arrested for promoting her beliefs, or working at the Center for Defenders of Human Rights – a Center which has been shut anyway, though no authority is willing to admit it except the secretary of the spokesperson for the Judiciary, who remarked that the Center did not have a license? It is one of the wonders of our time that a spokesperson who is always before television cameras and constantly gives interviews about all judicial cases refuses to announce this closure of one office. Perhaps he knows all too well that it is a lie, and therefore lets his secretary announce it. At any rate, the problem with the Center appears to be Mrs. [Shirin] Ebadi. That is, in order to pressure the Center for Defenders of Human Rights, they must force Mrs. Ebadi to retreat. The conditions of this time do not allow the regime to arrest Mrs. Ebadi. Therefore, to pressure and intimidate her, they arrest Zhinous Sobhani, knowing that Ban-Ki Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, will not intercede in Mrs. Sobhani's case. That is, the regime arrests one of its citizens in order to indirectly pressure another citizen. Zhinous Sobhani must be used as a pawn in a scenario to pressure Mrs. Ebadi and the Center for Defenders of Human Rights into abandoning their main goal, which is the lifting of the illegal ban on the Center. Even if - an extremely unlikely event - Zhinous Sobhani has committed a crime, it has no bearing on the Center. Being an employee of the Center is not a crime. If she has committed a crime, then it must be proven in a just court, with an attorney and a sitting jury; and not by sending her to solitary confinement and forcing her into confessing to false accusations. On the other hand, what has the Center for Defenders of Human Rights done to invite so much pressure? Is defending citizenship rights, opposing war and sanctions, and defending the rights of individuals irrespective of their religious or ideological beliefs a crime? The forced closing of the office of the Center for Defenders of Human Rights is illegal and Zhinous Sobhani is a victim of pressure tactics against the Center. The arrest of any member or employee of the Center is intended to exert pressure on its chief, Mrs. Ebadi. All advocates of human rights and freedom-seeking organizations must condemn such acts. These condemnations are consequential — they strengthen the sense of fraternity among Iranians and their belief in and respect for citizenship rights. The very existence of the government-people relationship resides in respecting the right of citizenship of all Iranians. How good it would be if we Muslims supported the rights of all people in accordance with our Qur'anic traditions, and aligned with the example and the deeds of Ayatollah Taleqani! God has created all people and invited all to believe in the oneness of God and in justice. We must show oneness and justice through our deeds, not mere words. Return the rights of citizenship to Zhinous Sobhani! [Posted on Wednesday, 1/28/2009 at http://www.roozonli |
| Attack on the Baha'is of Mashhad Posted: 29 Jan 2009 02:10 PM PST The agents of the Ministry of Intelligence raided once again the homes of ten Baha'is in Mashhad and arrested two Baha'is. Yesterday, January 26, the Iranian security forces raided Baha'is homes in Mashhad in a systematic and organized way. This took place after similar incidents in recent months in such places as Sari, Semnan, Qa'emshahr and Tehran, where Baha'i homes have been the target of such attacks. In this most recent raid, the Intelligence forces attacked at least ten Baha'i homes – all belonging to prominent Baha'is that serve the community in Mashhad in a coordinating capacity. Among the victims of this attack were the homes of Mr. Sirous Zabihi, Mr. Soheil Nasirzadeh, Mr. Davar Nabilzadeh, where the agents confiscated personal belongings, pictures of religious figures, religious books, personal computers and even religious jewelry. During these incidents, at least two members of the Baha'i community, Ms. Sima Eshraghi and Mr. Jalayer Vahdat, were arrested and transferred to an undisclosed location. There is no further information available regarding the two aforementioned individuals. [Source: http://news. |
| Iran: Using terror internally and abroad Posted: 29 Jan 2009 01:58 PM PST Editor's note: The following article was written by Wahied Wahdat-Hagh and is reposted here due to its importance for our readers' information. A german translation can be found at http://europeandemo On 14 January Iranian secret service agents arbitrarily detained at least six members of the Baha'i religion in Tehran, including a former female colleague of Shirin Ebadi. At the same time terror propaganda against pro-Western Arab regimes continues. On the morning of 14 January, Iranian secret service agents conducted raids in at least 11 homes of members of the Baha'i religion in Tehran. Computers, mobile phones, private notes, books and photos were confiscated. At least six Baha'is were arbitrarily detained, five of whom were taken to the notorious Evin prison. They are Mrs Jinous Sobhani, Mr Shahrokh Taefi, Mr Didar Raoufi, Mr Payam Aghsani and Mrs Aziz Samandari. Only Mr Golshan Sobhani was released after a few hours.
As recently as 21 December 2008, Jinous Sobhani had been the victim of aggression by Iranian officials when they raided and shut down the Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Tehran run by Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. The Centre was also home to a mine clearance project, for which Jinous Sobhani worked. The projects were partly financed from the money that Shirin Ebadi received for winning the Nobel Prize. On 21 December 2008, Jinous Sobhani was forced to leave her place of work and go home. She was arbitrarily detained on 14 January. Continued pressure against human rights campaigners Shirin Ebadi has expressed her regret and said that she regarded the detention of her former colleague as a continuation of the pressure against the Centre for the Defence of Human Rights. As the Campaign for Equality reported, Jinous Sobhani had previously published a number of legal texts in domestic newspapers. Diane Ala'i, representative of the International Baha'i Community at the United Nations, told Radio Farda concerning the detentions: "These people were detained because of their belief in the Baha'i religion." Diane Ala'i also pointed to the "general human rights situation" in Iran, reported Baha'i World News Service. On 14 January, nine Baha'i students studying at the university in the Iranian city of Kerman were forced to leave the university purely because they were Baha'i. Iranian media's conspiracy theories against the Baha'is The Iranian media is keeping up its conspiracy theories against the Baha'is: for example, just as the BBC Persian-language television channel was launched, an article on the aims of this new British service appeared, from the news agency Tabnak, which belongs to the former Revolutionary Guards general Mohssen Rezai. This report obviously referred to Baha'i connections with the BBC Persian-language radio service, which has been broadcasting daily since 1941. It is not enough for the totalitarian dictatorship of the Islamic "Republic" of Iran to repress the weakest members of society, including the women's and human rights movements and the students' and workers' movements – anyone with a different philosophy of life is regarded as a threat to the dictatorship. Hojatuleslam Shirazi recently warned of a "velvet revolution". Any non-Islamist way of thought can be regarded as a threat in Iran. Internal Islamisation goes hand in hand with export of the revolution abroad. No lesser person than General Mohssen Rezai said in September 2008 that supporting the Palestinians would "strengthen Iran's national security". Terror abroad: "Islamist ecumenism" or jihad against the West Since 1982, Iran has been demonstrably active in training militant Islamist jihadists to set up theocracies around the Islamic world, based on the model of Iran. But what would happen if the Egyptian president was assassinated in a terrorist attack? Would not the Iranian state, as a result of its inflammatory state propaganda of the past few weeks, be responsible for mobilising radical and fanatical students as accomplices to a terrorist act? At the beginning of the year the student Bassiji units, who apparently do not need study grants, announced that they would pay a bounty of one million dollars to anyone who kills Egypt's President Mubarak. Iranian Islamists, who in the opinion of some authors in Germany are in the process of forming an "Islamist ecumenism" with Hamas and Hezbollah, call this a "revolutionary execution". On 12 January Fardanews, which is close to Ahmadinejad, reported that the "prize for Mubarak's execution was being raised to 1.5 million dollars". Egypt's President Mubarak was described as the "Egyptian pharaoh". In Iran, oil is no longer officially sold in dollars, but it is still perfectly acceptable to issue a bounty in dollar, particularly for "hostile" presidents. 300 people have come forward as voluntary assassins Sadeq Shabazi, chairman of the "Student Movement for Justice", said: "Three decades ago the martyr Khalid Eslamboli shot dead Egypt's traitorous president. This was the revolutionary execution of Anwar Sadat. Today the entire Egyptian people confirms that what Eslamboli did was a necessary step." He went on to say that Mubarak cooperated with the "Zionist regime". Shabazi gloated about the fact that more than 300 people had come forward as voluntary assassins in the Iranian city of Mashad alone. Years ago the state has named a street in Tehran after Anwar Sadat's killer. So is it really moderate, as is often claimed, if the Islamist leader Ali Khamenei prevents a mass of fanatics from flying to Gaza to die terrorists' deaths there? Not really, since such a step could signify a direct entry into war, something that Ali Khamenei does not intend to risk. However, the militant Bassiji units have been trained for the fateful day for years. They are regarded as a reserve unit of the Iranian army. Iranian politicians have repeatedly warned that they would react with an asymmetric war if the situation became serious. There are authors in Germany who talk of a "consolidated" Iranian state that is acting almost rationally - unlike the Pakistani state. Murderous gifts No lesser person than the Iranian leader Ali Khamenei himself had called for the jihad against Israel - and this does not involve humanitarian aid for a region in crisis, by any means. It should not be forgotten that it is Iranian weapons that Hamas and Hezbollah are using, and the money for buying the weapons and rockets did not come from the gross national product generated in Gaza or southern Lebanon. For 28 years, Iran has been training terrorists who are supposedly defending Islam and, as such, are merely conducting a proxy war for the Khomeini dictatorship. Iran's rulers have still not issued free plane tickets for terrorists marching voluntarily into death, and they are still preventing them from going on their mass organised journey abroad. They continue to content themselves with training and supporting jihadists who provide them with "resistance" If US President Obama does speak with Iran's rulers, he should make it clear to them and the world that Iran needs a secular democracy, freedom of opinion and belief, political freedoms rather than Islamist fractions and the Khomeinistic totalitarian dictatorship of Velayat Faqih. This is because a totalitarian dictatorship with a religious stamp, as prevails in Iran, can not genuinely act responsible within its own system nor show reason internally and abroad. Source: http://europeandemo |
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