Is it okay to ride on the coat tails of what’s happening to Jîna Mahsa Amini to point out what’s been happening to Bahá’ís in Iran since the 80s? Bc I have a feeling that there is at least a slight connection here.
Background context on the Bahá’í Faith, as remembered by a single Bahá’í who does not have the emotional energy to go source hunting right now: the Bahá’í Faith, founded in 1844 (originally called the Báb’í Faith, the name changed after April 1863 when Bahá’u’lláh stepped into the role the Báb left for Him), is the newest world religion (yes, even counting Mormonism/the LDS as a separate religion from Christianity), and was founded in Persia. Shiraz and Tehran specifically. A woman I have heard called “The first Feminist of Iran” Tahireh or Tahereh depending on transliteration was an early Báb’í, and she entered a meeting of other early Báb’ís without her hijab to argue that they were, in fact, a new religion and not a sect.
Today, Bahá’ís in Iran are arrested on trumped up charges like “spying for Israel” because that’s where the legislative body of the world wide community is situated, or say, not wearing their hijab correctly, and so on. My personal friends have told me stories of their narrow and in some cases literally deadly escapes from their beloved motherland, and I had a houseguest for a while who completed most of his degree through the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education, an underground university that was put together because Bahá’ís in Iran are banned from higher education. One child even got thrown out of a private school at age ten or twelve (I believe I read that on IranPressWatch.org in… 2016? 2017?). Graveyards are destroyed. In August of this year, if my sense of time hasn’t completely abandoned me again, the New York Times ran a story about the Iranian government destroying a northern farming village in which most of the year round residents are Bahá’ís—of course, there’s constant denial of the religious motivation—and I can’t go a single Holy Day without hearing about how a friend’s relative or a well known Iranian Bahá’í got arrested for taking the day off from work.
So, yes, protest for the right to choose to cover or not, but remember that it’s not just Muslim woman being forced to wear hijab. Remember that this is targeted.
If you’re ready to cry, check out IranPressWatch.org, which specifically documents the persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran. Other resources included the Baha’i World Newsservice, and BIC.org (Baha’i International Community). Jîna Mahsa Amini may not have been a Bahá’í (though personal connections have now on october 1st revealed her cousin whom she was visiting is), but I have no doubt that the Bahá’í community will rally for her justice—as much as we can. It’s not safe for known Bahá’ís, especially Persian Bahá’ís to actively protest Iran, as the government is looking for any reason to strike any Bahá’ís who have remained. If a Persian Bahá’í is identified as protesting, any family they have in Iran is then specifically targeted on charges of sedition/spying.
Thank you for your time. I’d try to give more information, but I did go to check IranPressWatch to see if there was an article about Jîna Mahsa Amini specifically, and seeing how many arrests there were just this month left me in tears.
