Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

ABF Notice: On August 24, 2013, Mr. Ataollah Rezvani was visiting a friend’s house and talking to its 17 year old Afghan house keeper when his cell phone rang. After a fairly long conversation, Rezvani left his friend’s house for an unknown destination. That evening his dead body was found in his car with a bullet in his head near a train station in the outskirt of the city of Bandar Abbas (Hormozgan Province). This was not an ordinary crime, for the victim was a follower of Baha’i religion, an unrecognized religion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Baha’is are deprived of all basic civil rights and the state does not protect their lives and property. The Baha’i community has suffered systematic persecution since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.* Rezvani had been under pressure by the security forces to emigrate from Iran and live in another country. According to his friends and relatives, Rezvani had no personal enemies and he was very popular both within the Baha’i and the Muslim communities. He was a prominent figure in his community and provided help and assistance to his fellow Baha’is. After the Friday Prayer Imam of Bandar Abbas, Ayatollah Na’im Abadi, preached several Sermons defaming and maligning Baha’i faith and doctrine, Rezvani and two of his friends wrote him a letter protesting the slandering of their creed. They also filed a complaint against the Friday Imam with the security forces. They contended that this hate speech incites hatred against the Baha’is and may result in bloodshed. In the wake of Rezvani’s murder, the police launched a thorough investigation, but the investigation was quickly halted and the authorities claimed that his death may have been a suicide. However, this hypothesis was not supported by the initial results of the investigation. The 17 year old Afghan house keeper, the last person to have seen Rezvani alive, disappeared after he told the victim’s relatives and their lawyer that the security forces had forbad him to speak to them.

Ataollah Rezvani is not the first Baha’i to have been murdered. Since 2005 at least 9 Baha’is have been either murdered or died in suspicious circumstances and 52 Baha’is have been subjected to assault and battery by security forces or unidentified individuals. In all these cases the authorities have refused to investigate and prosecute. Because of their anti-Baha’i hate speech and by their granting of impunity to those who assault, persecute and kill Baha’i citizens, Iranian authorities bear a heavy responsibility in the ongoing commission of crimes against Baha’is in Iran.

The text published here contains excerpts of one of Ayatollah Na’im Abadi’s anti-Baha’i Friday Sermons. The Friday Imam of Bandar Abbas is also a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, and in charge of designating all the Friday Imams of the Hormozgan Province.

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Excerpts from Ayatollah Na’im Abadi’s Friday Prayer Sermon, preached on August 6, and published on August 12, 2010

For some reason, our discussion was turned to this portion of the Holy Verse: “Painful punishment awaits those who plot evil deeds.”

Those who organize sins, [such as] prostitution, printing immoral CD’s, [etc.], are organizing dangerous corruption, and these are examples of “plotting evil deeds.”

But there is another very important area which has not been the subject of attention [and scrutiny], and that is plotting evil deeds against people’s beliefs. A bunch of charlatans subject individuals, and society as a whole, to the most perilous of dangers by [presenting] them with seemingly nice but [in reality] deceitful and enticing propositions. The founders of falsehoods, [referring to Satan and polytheist] doctrines and creeds, and of deviant ideologies, are all examples of this: they are the very instances of “plotting evil deeds.”

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I became intent on discussing this issue for two or three weeks for two reasons: One was the warm reception the discussion got. My take from last week’s discussion was that society wants us to [continue to] conduct these discussions. [There were] some among the young people who insisted not only that we provide them with last week’s discussion, but that we continue to have them for a few more sessions. My personal feeling is the same, that we should continue this series of discussions.

[The necessity of discussing the Baha’i [Faith]]

Our young people don’t understand what these people are saying. I must also say that [unfortunately,] even those who should know, don’t get involved in these discussions because of the volume of their work; [therefore] even they don’t understand.

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Everything I am telling you is directly from their books and I’m not adding to or taking out a thing. It is strictly from their sources, and not one bit or one sentence is quoted from anyone else; [in other words] I’m not quoting from such and such person quoting such and such book, which quotes such and such book! No Sir! I am citing directly their own sources for today’s discussion.

Of course I would prefer that those performing Namaz prayers [worshippers] take notes, and, citing [these discussions], go to those who have been fooled and deceived. If this crowd of thousands gathered here for Friday prayers go at it [and debate] with Baha’is in a scientific manner, they will have nothing to say in their own defense.

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[Analysis of some Baha’i edicts]

1. Plundering and pillaging the properties of non-Baha’is is permitted

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Now let’s see how Hosseinali Baha confronts moral corruption. Pay very close attention: The book of “Aghdas”, new printing, page 47, says whoever commits adultery, both the adulterous man and the adulterous woman, are to only pay 9 mesghals (mesghal is a unit of weight equal to about 5 grams) of gold to the House of Justice. That’s it.

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And please pay attention to this edict, and shed tears for humanity and for those uninformed young people who are not in contact with Akhund (Shi’a cleric) or with the centers [and the institutions] with which they must be in contact. They lose their beloved Islam and their Great, Holy Koran for a bunch of slogans, and get entangled with this nonsense.

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It says: “Baha’i men and women must marry and try to procreate so that a person can come of them to worship God. But if they cannot bear children, they are permitted to take action to have children, which means that the woman be put at the disposal of another [man]”!! This is an example of this wrong path.

It seems to me that what I just stated is sufficient to shed light on the nature of this unreasonable and irrational movement. Take note of all this and tell those professional Baha’is: “Is this what you say? Are these your tenets?” No reason and no rationality [can make such rulings]. No rational and reasonable human being can consider [and accept] these rules as actual rules.

Someone who doesn’t know these things, may have said something different [about the Baha’i faith], for reasons we don’t know. Then a bunch of charlatans started promoting [what this person said] for their own financial gain, enticing and deceiving a number of unaware youth. Almighty God, protect our society from these germs!

There are two books that I have made a note of and it would be good if you could obtain them as they are very good books. The best book I have seen about Baha’ism, based on their own sources and with page citations, is “Trial and Analysis of the History, Beliefs, and Edicts of Bab Baha”, written by Allameh Mostafavi, who passed away recently.

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The other book is by the late Aqa Sheikh Javad Tehrani, entitled “What Does the Baha’i Say?” which, although a good book, [is not as good as] the first book I mentioned, which is frankly far better. There is another short, 70-page book entitled “[Applying] Insecticide to Baha’i Insects” by Mr. Mortazavi, which is not bad.

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Unfortunately, due to society’s lack of awareness, Baha’is have a powerful presence in many sectors, especially in the economic [and financial] sector. Wretched are those who do business with them out of ignorance. I told you that not only are these people [the Baha’is] not Muslim, they are Kafer [Infidels]. Worse yet, they are hard-core Infidels who are thoroughly and completely in fundamental conflict with Islam. They introduce and present themselves as Muslim and their pretense is: “We accept whatever you accept; our only difference is about the Imam of Time [Twelfth Imam in Shi’a Islam, who is absent but will appear someday and establish true Islam].”

They lie. They believe neither in our Koran, nor in the Holy Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him and His Descendants), nor in Ali [First Imam in Shi’a Islam and Mohammad’s son-in-law and rightful successor]. They consider all of this to be in the past [and irrelevant]: the Koran has passed, the Imam has passed, the Prophet has passed; meaning that their time has gone.

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The authorities of the Islamic Republic have subjected the members of the Baha'i religious community of Iran (the largest minority, with approximately 300 thousand members) to systematic harassment and persecution, depriving them of their most fundamental human rights. The Baha'i religion is not recognized under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, and Iranian authorities refer to it as a heresy. As a result, the Baha'is have been denied the rights associated with the status of a religious minority; they cannot profess and practice their faith and are banned from public functions. Discrimination under the law and in practice has subjected them to abuse and violence. The Islamic Republic Penal Code grants no rights to Baha'is, and the courts have denied them the right to redress or to protection against assault, murder, and other forms of persecution and abuse. In so doing, the courts have treated Baha'is as unprotected citizens or "apostates," citing eminent religious authorities whose edicts are considered to be a source of law equal to acts of Parliament. The Founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, made execution a punishment for the crime of apostasy and decreed that a Muslim would not be punished for killing an apostate. Banishment from public functions has seriously damaged the Baha’is’ professional, economic, and social lives. Soon after the revolution, a Ministry of Labor directive called for the dismissal from public office and all governmental organizations and associations those "who belong to any of the misguided sects recognized by all Muslims as heretical deviations from Islam, or to organizations whose doctrine and constitution are based on rejection of the divinely-revealed religions." Finally the mandatory requirement of specifying religion in application forms and official documents (lifted recently in some areas under international pressure) has seriously limited Baha'is' freedoms and opportunities in all areas of their lives including divorce, inheritance, access to universities, and travel. In practice, since 1980, thousands of Baha'is have lost their jobs, pensions, businesses, properties, and educational opportunities. By banning the Baha'i organization, an elected spiritual body that administers the affairs of the faith at both local and national levels, the Islamic Republic has denied Baha'is the right to meet, elect, and operate their religious institutions. Further, the Iranian government has executed at least 200 Baha'is and has imprisoned, tortured, and pressured to convert to Islam scores more. Because of the unanimous international condemnation of the persecution of this quietist (apolitical) religious community, Iranian authorities do not always admit that the Baha'is are being punished for their religious beliefs. Therefore, judicial authorities have often charged Baha'is with offenses such as "being involved in counter-revolutionary activities," "having supported the former regime," "being agents of Zionism," or "being involved with prostitution, adultery, and immorality."