Month: September 2018

Authorities Raid Home of Detained Baha’i Citizen Noora Pourmoradian, Arrest her Parents

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The aggression against Baha’is in Iran was still palpable Thursday, September 27th when Shiraz-based Security forces raided the home of Shirazi Baha’i prisoner of conscience Noora Pourmoradian, seizing her personal belongings and temporarily detaining her mother and father. Claiming that the search was necessary to the completion of Noora’s case, security forces threatened the Pourmoradian family with “severe consequences” if they leaked photo evidence or publicly disclosed information about the incident. “To intimidate them, they handcuffed Mr. Saeid Pourmoradian (Noora’s father) and took him into the car, menacing him [about…

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Baha’i Arrests in Karaj; 20 and Counting

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Hooman Khoshnam, a Baha’i resident of Karaj, became the sixth Baha’i citizen to be arrested by Ministry of Intelligence security forces in the city on September 25th, 2018. In addition to arresting him, security forces also sealed the door to Khoshnam’s workplace. Khoshnam’s arrest is the latest in a series intensified persecution of Baha’i citizens, thus far affecting 20 citizens in Karaj, Shiraz, and on the outskirts of Isfahan. Before Khoshnam’s arrest, Payam Shabani, another Baha’i resident of Karaj, was arrested by security forces only one day earlier on September…

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Bulletin on September 2018 Baha’i Crackdown

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An intense wave of human rights violations has seriously undermined the Iranian Baha’i community over the past two weeks. For years, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution has kept a firm hand on the upward mobility of Baha’i citizens by barring them from government employment and placing myriad obstacles on their paths to higher education. A toll of some of the campaign’s most recent victims underlines its widening scope: fifty-eight Baha’i students, after successfully passed this year’s National University Entrance Exam, stopped short of enrolling; at least four Baha’i…

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Civil Rights Activist Mehrnaz Haghighi Heads to Judiciary to Begin Prison Sentence

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Mehrnaz Haghighi, a civil rights activist and doctor from Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf coast, presented herself to the enforcement department of the Hormozgan Judiciary on Saturday, September 22nd, in order to serve her sentence. She was transferred to Bandar Abbas Prison later that day. Haghighi was previously sentenced to six months in prison on a charge of “propaganda against the regime.” She was first arrested by intelligence agents in her home on February 19, 2017. After being held in solitary confinement for a week, she was transferred to…

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