February 29. On this date in 1996, Iain S. Palin of the UK Bahá'í Information Office wrote a letter titled "The Mahrami Case - What it is and Why it Matter" about the case of Dhabihu'llah (also rendered Zabihullah or Zabihollah) Mahrami.

February 29. On this date in 1996, Iain S. Palin of the UK Bahá'í Information Office wrote a letter titled "The Mahrami Case - What it is and Why it Matter" about the case of Dhabihu'llah (also rendered Zabihullah or Zabihollah) Mahrami.


Thursday 29 February, 1996
From Dr Iain S. Palin, UK
Bahá'í Information Office

THE MAHRAMI CASE - WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT MATTERS

Local Bahá'í communities all over the U.K. are contacting their M.P.s and Euro-M.P.s, and publicising the plight of a man sentenced to death in Iran. The case of Mr D. Mahrami may be just one sad item in a world-wide catalogue of abuses of human rights - but it is one which has implications for hundreds of thousands of people in Iran, Bahá'ís, Christians, and Jews alike.
It is the business of anyone who is concerned about human rights and religious freedom of conscience.
The enclosed report gives the facts.

THE MAHRAMI CASE - THE BACKGROUND

Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran that country has been under the rule of Muslim clergy of the Shi'ite sect. The state religion is Shi'ite Islam, and its teachings and rules form the basis of the country's constitution and laws. Religious minorities have faced varying difficulties. The Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian (Parsee) communities have had some measure of recognition, but they are second class citizens in their own country. However the followers of the Bahá'í Faith, Iran's largest non- Muslim religious minority, were singled out for persecution. The Bahá'í Faith had its beginnings in Iran a century and a half ago. Since then it has spread, to the extent that it is now the world's second most widespread religion after Christianity. Most Bahá'ís live outside the Middle East and have never had any connection with Islam. Despite this, the Muslim clergy of Iran refuse to consider it a religion, and because its teaching go against their own in many key aspects, they are determined to root it out of their country.
Thus the entire Bahá'í administration in Iran is banned, and many of its leading figures have been executed. At first the authorities maintained that this was for crimes they were supposed to have committed, but lately it has been admitted that it was done because they were Bahá'ís, and that the government does indeed have a programme to "cleanse" Iran of Bahá'í influence.
All Bahá'í property has been seized (not just community resources, but the homes of individuals), Bahá'í students are barred from going to university, many in work have been dismissed from the jobs, while retired people have had their pensions stopped.
In some particularly outrageous cases pensioners have been told they must repay to the state all pensions received since they retired, Bahá'í bodies have been removed from cemeteries and dumped, while their tombstones were taken and sold, and Bahá'í families have asked to pay for the cost of the bullets with which their relatives were executed.
For the past two - three years there has been some easing off of the pressure although the major discriminations against Bahá'ís remain. Bahá'ís are still in prison for their faith, two under sentence of death since 1992. It is against this background that the Mahrami case comes - with a fresh and worrying twist.

THE MAHRAMI CASE - THE FACTS

Early in January Mr Dhabihu'llah (also rendered Zabihollah) Mahrami, was arrested and interrogated in the city of Yazd, Iran. The news has just emerged that after that interrogation he was sentenced to death. Mr Mahrami, who was a lifelong Bahá'í having been born into a Bahá'í family, was, like most of his co-religionists, subject to much harassment by the authorities. Eventually a notice was published in a local newspaper bearing his photograph and announcing his recantation of his faith as a Bahá'í and his conversion to Islam. (In such rare cases of recantation as do occur, the authorities will usually insist on the person taking out such an advertisement.)
As a result of this Mr Mahrami was suspended from the Bahá'í community and over a period of time enquiries were made. He maintained that the notice had been placed without his knowledge or consent, and that while a form stating his recantation appeared to bear his signature, he had not knowingly signed that form and had not in fact recanted. It appears that some of Mr Mahrami's Muslim work colleagues may have placed the advertisement, apparently out of concern for him and a desire to see him spared further harassment.
When the Bahá'í community in Yazd was satisfied that events had taken place as Mr Mahrami said, and that he was indeed genuinely a Bahá'í, he was reinstated in the community. He made this reinstatement known to his colleagues and the authorities soon learned about it.
Mr Mahrami was then arrested and interrogated for alleged apostasy from Islam, a crime which carries the death penalty in the Islamic code as it is applied in Iran. Throughout his interrogations he made it clear that he was Bahá'í, and he resisted great pressure, including threats of death, which were employed to try to have him state he was a Muslim.
As a result the court in Yazd has declared Mr Mahrami guilty of apostasy and decreed that he should be executed, and his possessions should be con fiscated leaving his family destitute. The case has now been appealed to the Iranian Supreme Court, and Bahá'í communities in the U.K. are asking their M.P.s and Euro- M.P.'s to take all the steps they can to try to stop the sentence being carried out.
This case sets a worrying precedent, whereby someone in Iran can be taken as having converted to Islam, even if they did not genuinely do so, and then when they affirm their own faith they can be condemned to death for having apostatised from Islam. Although the Christian and Jewish minorities in Iran are not subject to the same pressure and persecution as the Bahá'ís, it is worth pointing out that they have no special status in the matter of conversion and recantation - in other words, the same thing could happen to one of them as has happened to Mr Mahrami.
The Bahá'í community in the United Kingdom believes that everyone should know the case of this unfortunate victim of base religious persecution.