Iranian authorities arrested 10 women from the Bahai community in a series of coordinated raids, the Bahai International Community (BIC) announced on Wednesday, according to a report in the AFP news agency.
The group, which represents Bahai interests at the United Nations, expressed alarm over the escalating repression against one of Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minorities.
“Security forces arrested ten Bahai women, without arrest warrants or prior notification, in a series of shocking home raids,” the BIC said in a statement quoted by AFP.
According to the group, security agents employed extreme measures during the arrests, scaling walls, pressuring neighbors, and even pretending to be utility workers to gain access to the women’s homes. “Subjecting them to distressing and invasive searches,” the statement added.
The women are accused of participating in activities deemed “deviant” under Islamic law, including conducting educational and propaganda initiatives.
The BIC condemned the arrests as part of “a systematic and escalating campaign of persecution against the Bahai.”
The Islamic Republic considers the Bahai faith a heretical offshoot of Islam and accuses its followers of ties to Israel, due to the fact that a main Bahai shrine is located in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
In 2022, Iranian security forces in northern Iran arrested 12 followers of the Bahai faith and accused them of being “Zionist spies”.
In 2013, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a fatwa, urged Iranians to avoid all dealings with members of the banned Bahai sect.
Two years later, the US Senate condemned Iran’s persecution of the Bahai and urged Iran to free jailed members of the Bahai faith.
The BIC and other human rights organizations have urged the international community to take decisive action to address Iran’s ongoing persecution of the Bahai minority.