Day 41 Iran Revolution: Religious Cleansing In Iran

Stand with the people marching and dying for freedom in Iran.

Worldwide demonstrations tomorrow. Over at United4Iran.com: "Join this unprecedented wave of global citizen activism in
solidarity with the people of Iran. On July 25, participate in an event
in one of more than 105 cities around the world. Find out how else you can help."

Over at the Washington Times:

Human rights groups and Iran activists are organizing a
massive "Global Day of Action" on Saturday, hoping to rally people in
more than 60 cities in support of Iran's democracy movement.

The rallies are to take place from Kabul to Kansas City, from
Tokyo to San Francisco and include a march in Washington, from the
local office of the United Nations to the national Mall, said Hadi
Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in
Iran.

Mr. Ghaemi said the demonstrations will be live-streamed to Iranians
on YouTube and other Internet sites in hopes of encouraging them to
persist in their rejection of disputed results in Iran's June 12
presidential elections.

The Iranian government says the landslide victor was incumbent
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, hundreds of thousands of
Iranians have turned out in the streets – risking arrest and even death
at the hands of security forces – to decry the results as fraudulent
and demand a new vote.

Religious Cleansing in Iran AINA

Every aspect of a non-Muslim is unclean," proclaimed Iran's late Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. He explained that non-Muslims rank between "feces"
and "the sweat of a camel that has consumed impure food." Other prominent
ayatollahs, including Ahmad Jannati, the current chairman of the Guardian
Council, have made similar utterances.

Thus Iran's Zoroastrians, Jews, Mandeans, Christians, and Bahais are
subordinated and indeed treated as a fifth column by the revolutionary Islamic
Republic. No matter that most of these religious groups were established in Iran
before Islam arrived there; none are accepted by Iran's Shiite rulers as fully
Iranian. With the recent controversial presidential election, the scapegoating
of non-Muslims as agents of the United States, Israel, Britain, and the deposed
monarchy reached new heights. Seven Bahai leaders and two Christian converts are
in prison and will soon be put on trial for their lives, while other non-Muslims
are suffering intensified government repression.

Non-Muslim communities collectively have diminished to no more than 2 percent
of Iran's 71 million people. Forty years ago, under the Shah, a visitor would
have seen a relatively tolerant society. Iran now appears to be in the final
stages of religious cleansing. Pervasive discrimination, intimidation, and
harassment have prompted non-Muslims to flee in disproportionately high
numbers.

Like political dissidents, these religious minorities are a moderating force
against Iranian Shiite extremism. Also, their mere presence ensures a modicum of
ideological diversity and pluralism in the face of the regime's brutal
insistence on conformity. But unlike the dissidents, the religious minorities
have attracted little international concern, and their plight is poorly
understood.

Iran's constitution requires that laws and regulations be based on Islamic
criteria, which mandate inferior status for three non-Muslim faiths, while
withholding all rights and protections from all other faiths. Zoroastrian,
Jewish, and Christian (specifically, Assyrian and Armenian) live in a modern
version of dhimmi status — the protected though subjugated condition of "people
of the Book" dating back to medieval times. While these three groups are
allotted seats in the legislative assembly (a total of five out of 290 seats),
they are barred from seeking high public office in any of the three branches of
government.

Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and evangelical churches are not regarded as
heritage communities and are afforded few rights. Christian worship must be in
the Assyrian or Armenian languages, not in Farsi. Several Protestant and
evangelical leaders have been murdered by government agents in recent years, and
last year reports surfaced of a renewed crackdown against churches operating in
people's homes, with reportedly 50 or more arrests. Mandeans have sought in vain
for official recognition based on their historic ties to John the Baptist.

Members of the Bahai faith, an independent religion that originated in
19th-century Iran, are treated far worse: as heretics to be persecuted outright.
According to Iranian law, Bahai blood is considered mobah — that is, it can be
spilled with impunity. Over two hundred Bahais have been executed since 1979.
"An enemy of Islam" was written on some of their corpses. In 1979 the Pasdaran
(Revolutionary Guards) demolished the house of the Bab, a sacred Bahai site in
the southwestern city of Shiraz, and the place where it stood has since been
paved over for an Islamic center. The burial shrine of Quddus, a prominent
follower of the Bab, was destroyed at Babol in 2004. Bahais can gather only
underground — at private homes or in surreptitiously rented halls.

Converts from Islam to any other faith are regarded by the state as apostates
who can be put to death. Iran bans non-Muslims not only from proselytizing but
from most public religious expression in the presence of Muslims. The
Intelligence Ministry closely monitors Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian
religious communities. These groups are routinely denied permission for formal
contacts with foreign co-religionists.

Among these religious groups, initiation ceremonies, weddings, and funerals
must be discreet affairs. Even so, they run the risk of raids by the Ministry of
Islamic Culture and Guidance to ensure adherence to "Islamic standards." A 2004
raid of one gathering resulted in the arrest of 80 Christians for following
their own mores in women's dress and in allowing men and women to mingle.

In Shiraz, a synagogue, a church, and a fire temple are located in close
proximity to one another. Anti-Pahlavi graffiti there are refreshed regularly to
remind Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians that their loyalty remains suspect.
Jews often are accused of aiding Israel. In 2000, eleven prominent Iranian Jews
were convicted of spying for Israel.

The tomb of Daniel, from the Old Testament, is exploited by the regime to
promote its relentless anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda. One mural
features an imaginary scene of Iranian forces joining Palestinian fighters in
seizing Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Nearby slogans denounce Jews, Zionism, and
Israel. Jews have stopped visiting the site altogether.

Though the constitution permits Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to "act
according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious
education," Iran's Education Ministry administers minority schools and imposes a
state-approved religious textbook. Many minority secondary schools have been
nationalized. The surviving private schools typically have Muslim directors. All
university applicants must pass an examination in Islamic theology. Bahais have
been essentially barred from higher education.

Zoroastrian schools must display towering portraits of Iran's supreme
leaders. Quranic quotations and revolutionary slogans are painted on their
interior walls with the forced participation of the schoolchildren, while
mullahs and revolutionary guards chant Shia praises.

The same displays are forced on churches, especially those not within
Armenian or Assyrian neighborhoods. Churchgoers are taunted as infidels by
Pasdaran and by Basij militiamen.

Religious minorities experience high unemployment and economic
impoverishment, since so much of the economy, including the oil industry, is
controlled by the state. Minority storeowners must display prominent signs
indicating they are najasa (ritually unclean). Bahais have no property rights,
and their homes and business are vulnerable to confiscation.

Non-Muslims are not excluded from the compulsory military service, however,
and they report being deployed for especially hazardous assignments. During the
Iran-Iraq war, they were routinely transferred to suicide brigades. Non-Muslim
communities maintain small "martyrs' walls" as memorials to their war dead.

Any non-Muslim responsible for a Muslim's death faces capital punishment, in
accordance with medieval Islamic jurisprudence. Conversely, Muslims do not face
capital punishment or even long prison sentences for murdering a non-Muslim,
though they are fined. Exceptions are in the murder of a Bahai or a Muslim
apostate — no compensation whatsoever is required. In a court proceeding, a
non-Muslim's testimony is valued at half that of a Muslim's. A non-Muslim who
converts to Islam becomes the sole inheritor of his or her family's assets.

President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel, and promotes
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as genuine. He has reportedly vowed the end
of Christianity's development in Iran. Under his presidency, life has only
become more difficult for religious minorities. Their social organizations have
been subject to intrusive investigations and threatened with criminal charges on
such grounds as rejecting "cultural conformity" and weakening "the centrality of
the Islamic regime." A new committee in Qom has been empowered to "combat
activities of members of religious minorities." The five minority
parliamentarians, like 175 of their colleagues, left Tehran to avoid having to
congratulate the president upon his reelection, prompting a new round of raids
on synagogues, churches, and fire temples.

Iran's non-Muslims cannot defend their own rights. In 2005, the Zoroastrian
parliamentarian Kourosh Niknam tried to do so, by giving a speech protesting a
slur against non-Muslims by the head of the Guardian Council. He was prosecuted
for failing to show respect for Iran's leaders but released with a stern
admonishment in response to domestic and international pressure.

Iran's political dissidents are defended by the West. Its diverse non-Muslim
minorities ask why they've been forgotten.

By J. K. Choksy & Nina Shea
National Review Online

— Jamsheed K. Choksy is a professor of Iranian studies and former
director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University and serves
as a Member of the National Council on the Humanities. Nina Shea directs the
Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and serves on the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom. The views expressed herein are
their own.

All previous Atlas archives and liveblogging here: Iran: The Revolution