Following recent news articles reporting on the arrest and persecution of members of the Bahá’í community in Iran, the Bahá’í International Community Secretariat at the Bahá’í World Centre is issuing an official statement regarding the situation.
On 22 January 2025 the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran arrested eleven Bahá’í women in Baharestan, near Isfahan, without arrest warrants or prior notification in a series of shocking home raids. The detained women – several of whom are mothers of young children and infants, or caregivers to aging parents – have faced previous convictions for their faith. Security agents reportedly scaled walls, coerced neighbors, and posed as utility workers to force entry into the women’s homes, subjecting them to distressing and invasive searches. Neighbors were intimidated into silence and children in the homes were left traumatized by the operation.
These arrests are part of a systematic and escalating campaign of persecution against Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. The Bahá’í International Community strongly condemns this gross injustice and calls on the government and judicial system in Iran to uphold justice for these Bahá’ís.
Solely because of their religious beliefs, and ongoing since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Bahá’í women and men, children, youth, are routinely discriminated against, harassed, arrested, detained and imprisoned.
The Bahá’í Faith is an international, independent, monotheistic religion based on the teachings of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. The Bahá’í religion accepts the validity of all the other major world religions, but is not a sect or offshoot of any of them. The central teaching of the Bahá’í Faith is that humankind is one, that the prejudices and barriers that divide humanity must be overcome, and that the unity of all peoples must be established. There are around 9 million Bahá’ís globally, in virtually every country of the world.
The international governing institution of the Bahá’í religion, the Universal House of Justice, is based at the Bahá’í World Centre which, together the Holy Shrines of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb, are located in the cities of Acre and Haifa, in northern Israel. There is no local Bahá’í community in Israel, but around 700 Bahá’í volunteers from over 90 countries support the work of the Bahá’í World Centre.