The outgoing United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, highlighted the “extreme” persecution of the Iranian Baha’i community in his final report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 18, 2024. This report documents the persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran in detail.

“For more than four decades, members of the Baha’i religion, as the largest non-Muslim and constitutionally unrecognized religious minority, have suffered the worst forms of human rights violations, including executions, persecution, deprivation of property rights, desecration and destruction of cemeteries, violence and arbitrary arrests, denial of educational rights, closure of businesses, hate propaganda and social injustices and inequalities in all areas of public and private life.”

In his speech, Rehman also drew attention to the recent destruction and desecration of more than 30 new graves of Iranian Bahá’ís at a mass burial site in Tehran.

The Special Rapporteur’s report was the focus of a Human Rights Council session in which several UN member states mentioned the persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran and called on the Iranian government to end discriminatory practices and cooperate with the United Nations on human rights.

The Special Rapporteur’s written report also mentioned “at least 70 Bahá’ís” who are in detention or serving prison sentences. A further 1,200 are facing trial or “harsh and lengthy prison sentences”. The homes of nearly 100 Baha’i families have been raided and ransacked since October 2023, and authorities have confiscated cash, bank cards, jewelry, property deeds, identity documents, passports, electronic devices and religious books. Armed officers also intimidated Baha’is through physical violence, verbal abuse and even threats at gunpoint, according to the documentary.

Desecrated Bahá’í cemetery in Yazd, Iran; photo credit: By Taeedxy – Own work, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3932732