Iran's Baháʼís Survived Because the World Was Watching

The Islamic Republic has spent decades trying to stamp out Iran's largest non-Muslim minority. Advocates say global scrutiny has kept that campaign from becoming something even darker.

Had the world looked away, Iran’s Baháʼí community might no longer exist. That’s the warning from Bani Dugal, the Baháʼí International Community’s representative to the United Nations.

She argues that sustained international attention has prevented the Islamic Republic from carrying out what could have amounted to the eradication of the country’s largest non-Muslim minority.

“The government could have eliminated the Baháʼís through brutal means, which they are known to use,” Dugal tells Middle East Uncovered. “But I think it’s the international condemnation and the spotlight that’s shone on them, by these resolutions and other actions and statements by governments, that has prevented them from doing so.”

While global attention focuses on wars and bloodshed across the Middle East, another decades-long struggle has continued, largely unnoticed: the persecution of the Baháʼís.

The largest unrecognized religious minority in Iran, Baháʼís have been the target of harsh, state-backed repression since their religion was established in the 19th century. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian authorities executed or forcibly disappeared hundreds of Baháʼís, including their community leaders. Since then, the regime has codified its repression of Baháʼís into law and official government policy. Baháʼí homes and businesses are often raided or confiscated.

That persecution continues today, even as Iran is engaged in a war with the United States and Israel.

Dugal discussed the plight of the Baháʼís at a recent conference in London organized by the AMAR Foundation, a charity that aims to help persecuted communities around the world.

A UN group monitoring human rights abuses in Iran recently warned of a sharp increase in arrests, torture, and violations of Baháʼís, with at least 61 currently being held in detention centers or serving prison sentences, having been tortured to extract forced confessions.

Cousins Peyvand Naeimi and Borna Naeimi, the group observed, were subjected to “mock executions” to coerce confessions and remain held under dire conditions.

Such stories hardly get media coverage, says Dugal, because it’s “the same old story.” For journalists to cover the subject, she believes, “There should either be a lot of blood on the ground or something new or heinous.”

When Iranian poet and former prisoner Mahvash Sabet wrote about her ordeal from behind bars, she became the voice of thousands of Baháʼís who could not speak freely. Sabet and other members of the informal Baháʼí group, the Yaran-i-Iran (”Friends of Iran”), were labeled as spies working for foreign powers by the Islamic Republic. After spending two-and-a-half years imprisoned before trial, Sabet and six colleagues were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Sabet would ultimately spend a decade behind bars before being released in 2017, only to be re-arrested in 2022 and sentenced to another ten years. Now aged 74 and suffering serious heart and lung problems, she is still under the threat of being returned to prison.

Her translator, Bahiyyih, spoke with Middle East Uncovered earlier this summer.

“Mahvash writes so well,” says Dugal. “Reading extracts of her book and account of her treatment was bone-chilling.”

Dugal recalls a brief phone call with Sabet while the latter was in France visiting Bahiyyih, but the conversation was limited as Sabet does not speak much English and Dugal doesn’t speak Farsi.

Sabet managed to send Dugal a piece of art that she created while she was held in Evin Prison.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” says Dugal, searching for words. “It’s just beautiful.”

Dugal admires the “strength and resilience” of her fellow Baháʼís and the “courage of their convictions,” adding: “Yet they harbor no ill will towards the government. Baháʼís don’t wish the Islamic Republic ill. All we want is for them to respect [our] right to believe.”

Dugal, a 66-year-old retired lawyer, was born to Punjabi parents in northern India. A devout Sikh herself, she never imagined one day she would convert to another faith.

She made the decision after moving to the United States. Surprisingly, her parents didn’t object.

“My mum asked me, ‘Do Baháʼís believe in God?’ I said yes, it’s the same God. Then she said, ‘Next time you’re in India you will go with me to the Gurudwara [Sikh temple], and I will go to the Baháʼí temple with you.’”

“My father-in-law [also a Sikh] said to me, ‘I want my grandchildren to be raised in religion, it doesn’t matter which one.’”

Dugal had exposure to the Baháʼí faith in India, which is home to the largest Baháʼí community outside Iran. New Delhi is home to the famous Baháʼí Lotus Temple.

For centuries, India has absorbed countless minority groups, many of whom have assimilated successfully.

Dugal shares the fable of the Zoroastrians, or Parsis, who fled persecution in Iran between the 8th and 10th centuries and arrived on the shores of Gujarat in western India.

According to legend, the king gave the refugees a cup full of milk to show his land was full and had no space for new people. The Parsi priest added sugar to the milk without spilling it, to show his people would blend in and enrich the local culture without causing disruption. Pleased with the answer, the king let the new arrivals stay under the agreement that they respect local customs and learn the local language.

Today, the Parsis are a successful community that has retained the Zoroastrian faith while adopting Gujarati customs.

In a similar vein, Baháʼís are a model minority wherever they live, says Dugal.

Which is why their persecution is even more painful for her.

“We must stop othering people,” she warns. “If all individuals were to do their part in contributing to the wellbeing of their society, I think we would have a much better world than we do today.”

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