Iran hands new 10-year sentence to 2 prominent Bahai activists

Iran has issued new 10-year prison sentences for two prominent Bahai activists, the Bahai International Community (BIC) announced Sunday (December 11).

Mahvash Sabet, 69, and Fariba Kamalabadi, 60, who had both previously served 10-year prison terms over their activism, were handed new sentences after an hour-long trial on November 21, the BIC said.

The two women were arrested in late July at the start of a fresh crackdown on the Bahai, who number about 300,000 in Iran.

Judge Iman Afshari, who handed down the sentence, said Sabet and Kamalabadi "have not learned from their past jail sentence", the BIC said in its statement.

The Islamic Republic recognises minority non-Muslim faiths including Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism but does not extend the same recognition to Bahaism.

"It is profoundly distressing to learn that these two Bahai women ... are once again being incarcerated for another 10 years on the same ludicrous charges," said Simin Fahandej, the BIC representative at the United Nations (UN) in Geneva.

"Words fail to describe this absurd and cruel injustice," she said.

Both Sabet and Kamalabadi had been part of a now disbanded Bahai administrative group known as Yaran.

The pair were first arrested in 2008 and released in 2018, according to the BIC.

Sabet, who wrote poetry during the decade she spent in Tehran's Evin prison, was recognised in 2017 as an English PEN International Writer of Courage.

Pretexts for persecution

The precise nature of the national security-related charges was not immediately clear, but Iran's intelligence ministry said in August it had arrested Bahais suspected of spying for a centre in Israel and working illegally to spread their religion.

At least 90 Bahais are currently in prison or subject to ankle-band monitoring, the BIC said, adding that it had counted 320 individual acts of persecution of members of the community since the end of July.

In August, 13 Bahais, including prominent members of the community, were abruptly arrested in raids on 52 homes and businesses across the country.

The Islamic Republic regards members of the Bahai faith as "heretics" and regards them with suspicion, as the community has its main centre and spiritual home in the Israeli city of Haifa.

The Bahai community say these allegations are pretexts for persecution.

Bahais have faced similar persecution in Yemen at the hands of Iran's proxies, the Houthis.

In 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on Iran to end human rights violations against minority religions, including the Bahai.

It pointed to "harassment, intimidation, persecution, arbitrary arrests and detention", among other breaches.