LETTERS: BAHA'IS IN IRAN ARRESTED AND KILLED

To the editor:

The Baha'i community of Cape Girardeau wishes to inform your readers that members of our faith in Iran are still being arrested and killed. On Oct. 1, the U.S. State Department confirmed the execution of two Baha'is in the city of Mashad. The men, imprisoned sine 1997, were engaged only in religious teaching, not political activities.

On July 22, the American Baha'i community learned of the hanging of Ruhoallah Rowhani. His crime? Allegedly converting a woman to the Baha'i faith.

In October this year, 36 faculty members of the Baha'i Institute of Higher Education were arrested. Seven are still in custody. The arrests were made by officers of the Iranian government's official intelligence agency and involved seizure of textbooks, scientific papers, 70 computers and school furniture.

Intelligence officers also raided more than 500 Baha'i homes throughout Iran. When asked about the seizure of personal effects, they said the attorney general had authorized them to take anything they wished.

The wave of arrests and harassments bear the marks of a centrally orchestrated campaign. This is consistent with the declared policy of the Iranian government to nullify the Baha'i community and force its members to convert to Islam. This policy became widely known in 1993 when it was learned that two years earlier the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Council issued a secret document about the Baha'i question -- signed by Ayatollah Khamenei himself.

We had hoped that President Khatami's assertions on CNN in January -- about freedom, justice and the rule of law in Iran -- would apply to the Baha'is in that country. We fear for the lives of the Baha'is on death row and the other Baha'i prisoners.

Through many official channels, Baha'is nationwide are urging the international community to protest vigorously these killings to seek justice for the beleaguered Iranian Baha'i community. Although these events may seem remote from the lives of most Southeast Missourians, when the most basic of all freedoms, freedom of belief, is threatened anywhere, it should be a matter of deepest concern to us all.

JOANN M. TAYLOR, Secretary

Baha'i Community of Cape Girardeau

Cape Girardeau