NEWS STORY: PERSECUTION CONCERNS: U.S. condemns Iran for ongoing persecution of religious minorities

c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Amid new reports of persecution against religious minorities in Iran, the U.S. State Department has called on the Islamic republic to grant full religious liberty to members of all faiths. The State Department condemned a death sentence imposed on Musa Talibi, an Iranian member of the Baha’i faith […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Amid new reports of persecution against religious minorities in Iran, the U.S. State Department has called on the Islamic republic to grant full religious liberty to members of all faiths.

The State Department condemned a death sentence imposed on Musa Talibi, an Iranian member of the Baha’i faith who has been convicted of apostasy, or forsaking Islam. Talibi has been in prison on apostasy charges since 1994.


Meanwhile, Christians in the West report that an Assemblies of God pastor was found dead at the end of September under still-unexplained circumstances. The minister had close ties to two other Iranian Assemblies of God pastors who were murdered in 1994.”The United States once again calls on the government of Iran to desist in its persecution of members of the Baha’i and other religious minorities residing in Iran, and to comply fully with the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights,”State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said in a statement released Tuesday (Oct. 1).

Burns called on Iran”to repudiate (Talibi’s conviction) immediately, to release Mr. Talibi from custody and to guarantee his safety.”The statement also urged Iran to release all other Baha’is imprisoned on apostasy charges.

According to Kit Cosby, spokeswoman for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the United States, word that Talibi had been sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court reached the U.S. on Sept. 27. She said it was unclear exactly when he was sentenced.

The Baha’i community, which has some 300,000 members, is the largest minority religion in predominantly Shi’a Muslim Iran. The Baha’i faith, which teaches the unity of all religions, was founded in Iran in the mid-19th century by Mirza Husayn Ali, who proclaimed himself a prophet. Muslims believe Mohammed, who died in the 7th century, was the final prophet, putting them at odds with the Baha’is.

The Iranian government considers the Baha’i faith a”misguided sect,”and under the law, Baha’is are prohibited from practicing their faith.

Talibi was arrested on June 7, 1994, and has been held on religious charges in prison for more than two years. Talibi is one of four Iranian Baha’is currently facing death sentences because of religious beliefs.”The Baha’i community in the United States is very concerned about the fate of these four men and calls on the government of Iran to free them and allow them to go back to their homes and their families,”said Cosby.

At the same time, Western Christian organizations are condemning the suspicious death of the Rev. Mohammed Bagher Yusefi, an Assemblies of God pastor in his mid-30s who died in late September in northwest Iran. Yusefi died just days before Christians in some 117 countries around the world participated in an International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on Sept. 29. The day was organized by the World Evangelical Fellowship.


According to a statement from the Colorado Springs-based Iranian Christians International, Yusefi _ who had converted from Islam about 10 years ago and was known by the Christian name Ravanbakhsh, or”soul giver”in the Farsi language _ was killed”on or about”Sept. 25, and his body was discovered hanged on a tree in a forest near Sari, capital of a northwestern province.

Sources inside Iran told the group that Yusefi had been detained by police prior to his death.

Elam Ministries, an Iranian organization based in Great Britain, reported that Yusefi was found dead on Sept. 28. The group alleges that Yusefi left his house at 6:00 a.m. on Sept. 28 to pray and never returned. Local authorities informed Yusefi’s family of his death later that evening, Elam Ministries said.

The two expatriate Iranian groups described Yusefi as”a Christian martyr”and reported that while a funeral has been scheduled for Saturday (Oct. 5), local authorities had still not released Yusefi’s body to his family by Thursday (Oct. 3.)

Hossein Nosrat, spokesman for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, told RNS he had no information about either the Talibi or Yusefi case.

Yusefi is the third Assemblies of God pastor in Iran to die under suspicious circumstances in the past two years. Seven Christian ministers, including Yusefi, have been killed since 1979.


Assemblies of God pastor Haik Hovsepian-Mehr, chairman of the Iranian Protestant Council of Ministers, was murdered in late Jan. 1994 after he led a successful international campaign to secure the freedom of the Rev. Mehdi Dibaj, another Assemblies of God minister imprisoned on apostasy charges in Iran for nearly a decade. Dibaj was murdered less than six months after his early Jan. 1994 release from prison.

Yusefi had ties to both murdered pastors. Hovsepian-Mehr appointed Yusefi to the clergy in 1990, and Yusefi helped raise Dibaj’s two sons during the time Dibaj was imprisoned.

Doug Clark, Assemblies of God director for the Middle East, said the deaths of so many pastors has been devastating to his denomination, which has only a tiny presence in Iran.”The Iranian Assemblies of God has lost nearly 25 percent of its ministers,”he said.”This would be equivalent to the U.S. Assemblies of God losing some 3,700 of its ordained ministers.” About half of Iran’s some 15,000 Protestant Christians are estimated to be converts from Islam.

Because of Iran’s closed society, human rights groups have difficulty getting reliable information about ongoing abuses. However, since the 1979 revolution, Iran has come under repeated fire from the West for its record of religious intolerance. “Religious minority leaders continue to be singled out for extrajudicial executions in Iran,”Amnesty International USA Chairman of the Board Morton E. Winston asserted during testimony at a congressional hearing earlier this year. “Hundreds of members of the Baha’i faith have been reportedly executed in the past 15 years, and hundreds more were imprisoned or tortured because of their religious beliefs,”Winston added.

MJP END LAWTON

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