News

NEW DELHI, 17 November 2011  — In a report released today, the Baha'i International Community documents and analyzes more than 400 press and media items over a 16-month period, that typify an insidious state-sponsored effort to demonize and vilify Baha'is, using false accusations, inflammatory terminology, and repugnant imagery.

Representatives from media,  academic and the non-profit sector gathered today at the Indian National Baha’i Centre on Canning Road to launch the document. Rob Weinberg, Director of the Office of Public Information for the Baha’i International Community shared his remarks on the vision of the Baha’i community and the Iranian Government’s efforts to stamp out that vision by persecuting the community. He then went on to officially launch the report and commend it to those present for their study and action to bring light to this ongoing campaign against Iran’s largest religious minority.

Titled Inciting Hatred: Iran's media campaign to demonize Baha'is, the report's main conclusions are:
• anti-Baha'i propaganda originates with – and is sanctioned by – the country's highest levels of leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who gave a highly discriminatory speech in the holy city of Qom a year ago;

• the campaign spurns international human rights law and norms, including a precedent-setting resolution passed earlier this year at the United Nations Human Rights Council that specifically condemns and combats the negative stereotyping and incitement to hatred of religious minorities;

• Baha'is are branded as "outsiders" in their own land and as enemies of Islam in a manner that is clearly calculated to provoke the religious sensibilities of Iranian Shiite Muslims;
• the campaign aims to deflect attention away from calls for democracy in Iran by using Baha'is as an all-purpose "scapegoat" – and, in so doing, to smear those who oppose the government as well as human rights campaigners as Baha'is, "as if that were the most heinous crime."

• the authorities disseminate ludicrous conspiracy theories including that foreign broadcasters, in particular the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Voice of America (VOA), are controlled by or under the influence of Baha'is because they report stories about human rights violations in Iran.
Read the full report (PDF)

Naznene Rowhani greets Prof. Tahir Mahmood, Chairman, Amity University Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and Dr. Mohini Giri, Chairperson, Guild for Service