THE PUBLIC MIND: DENIAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS TO THE BAHA'IS OF IRAN CONTINUES

To the Editor:

The Baha'is of Southeast Missouri would like to make the people of this area aware of the continuing denial of fundamental human rights to the Baha'is of Iran. Repression and persecution for reasons of religious difference alone continue to be the official policy of the Iranian government.

The American Baha'i Community has just learned that officials in Tehran are destroying gravesites and removing bodies from Tehran's Baha'i cemetery to make way for construction of a local cultural center.

This is only the latest act in a long history of denial of rights which actually began in the last century when thousands of Baha'is were killed because of their faith. In this century, since 1979 alone, more than 200 Iranian Baha'is have been executed and thousands imprisoned.

On Feb. 22 of this year, the United Nations Human Rights Commission made public a confidential memorandum issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Council. This secret document was approved by both the president of Iran and the Ayatollah Khameni. It constitutes a blueprint for the destruction of the Baha'i Community in Iran. No other government document has revealed so clearly the determination of the highest Iranian authorities to uproot the Baha'i Faith from the land of its birth.

The document referred to confirms the intention of the Islamic Republic to create economic, social and cultural conditions under which the Iranian Baha'i Community would gradually be pauperized, wither and die.

Last April 22, President Clinton cited Iran's abusive treatment of the Baha'is as one of today's critical human rights issues.

On June 2, Congress again urged the Iranian government to "emancipate" the Baha'i Community Iran's largest religious minority and emphasized that the U.S. regards Iran's treatment of Baha'is as a "significant element" in the future relationships between the two countries.

Joann M. Taylor

Cape Girardeau