International pressure may have set Roxana Saberi free, but the plight of seven Iranian Baha’is, imprisoned in Tehran a year ago, has gone largely unnoticed.

Earlier this week, US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi was freed from prison in Iran after having her sentence for “spying” reduced. The charge, which she strongly denied, sparked international attention and calls for her release, which has now been widely welcomed.

But Ms Saberi leaves behind her many other inmates in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison whose “crimes” against the Iranian state are also open to question.

Thursday (14 May) marks the first anniversary of the arrest and detention of seven prominent members of the Baha’i faith, Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority.

In a letter issued in advance of the G20 meeting in London, political leaders are called upon to consider the moral issues at the root of the current financial crisis, and to pay special attention to the needs of poor, marginalised and vulnerable people: “to forget their needs would be to compound regrettable past failures with needless future injustices”.

Attention is drawn to promises made by the international community in “easier times” which now risk being “postponed by the pressing concern to rectify market failures”.

“Even in these difficult times we strongly urge the leaders of the G20 to hold fast to the commitments they have made to the world’s poorest people,” says the statement.

The 31 signatories to the letter include the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom along with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.

Recognising that people “who have lost jobs, savings, or homes, are in need of immediate help” the statement stresses the need for the G20 to fulfill its promises to the poor, citing World Bank figures that “53 million more people could fall into absolute poverty “ as a result of the world financial crisis, the faith leaders’ hope was that “poorer countries would be allowed to trade their way to prosperity”.

The text of the letter reads:

“We write as religious leaders who share a belief in God and the dignity of human life. We wish to acknowledge with realism and humility the severity of the current economic crisis and the sheer complexity of the global and local challenge faced by political leaders. We pray for the leaders of the G20 as they prepare to meet in London this week. They, and we, have a crucial role to play in recovering that lost sense of balance between the requirements of market mechanisms that help deliver increased prosperity, and the moral requirement to safeguard human dignity, regardless of economic or social category.

Many people are suffering as a result of the economic crisis. The World Bank estimates that 53 million more people could fall into absolute poverty as a result of the crisis. The likelihood is that more will face significant hardship before it comes to an end, and those who are already poor suffer the most. Along with the leaders of the G20 we all have a duty to look at the faces of the poor around the world and to act with justice, to think with compassion, and to look with hope to a sustainable vision of the future.

We wish therefore to draw attention to some of the promises made by the international community in recent times – with our wholehearted support – that risk being postponed by the pressing concern to rectify market failures. We need to be properly conscious that all communities include, and must pay special attention to the needs of, poor, marginalised and vulnerable people. To forget their needs would be to compound regrettable past failures with needless future injustices.

Some aspects of this crisis will require technical economic solutions. However those solutions alone will not be enough to address all the questions that we face. At the roots of this crisis lie important moral issues.

We are concerned for people and the work they do. We believe there is a need to consider the aspirations of both rich and poor; to examine our own expectations and how realistic they are; and to root future global patterns of work in our understanding of human dignity. We recognize that people who have lost jobs, savings, or homes, or who now live with the worry of what the future might bring are in need of immediate help. Their hope is for sustainable employment and not continuing job insecurity.

The international community has made important commitments to the developing world. The Millennium Development Goals are of fundamental importance and cannot now be forgotten. Even in these difficult times we strongly urge the leaders of the G20 to hold fast to the commitments they have made to the world’s poorest people. We still need to find ways to enable poorer countries to trade their way to prosperity. We hold that promises made to the poor are especially sacred.

When we spend now, we have to pay later. This also applies when we use up the resources of the natural environment. Morally binding commitments to cut carbon emissions and so to slow the devastating effects of man-made climate change have been made in recent years. They should not be forgotten or postponed. We call on the whole of the international community to hold firm to commitments already made. Most recognise that even more radical commitments will need to be agreed in the near future.

The leaders of the G20 countries are concerned to recover stability in the global economy. We support those efforts. And we pray that as they deliberate they will be mindful of the need to protect the vulnerable from unintended injustice and to respect the commitments they made in easier times.

Dr Musharraf Hussain Azhari
Chief Imam and Executive Officer, Karimia Institute
Chair, Christian-Muslim Forum
Dr Mohammed Abdul Bari
Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain
Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield
Head, Movement for Reform Judaism
Dr Girdhari Bhan
President, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (UK)
Mr Anil Bhanot
General Secretary, Hindu Council UK
Mr Steve Clifford
General Director, Evangelical Alliance
Mr Khurshid Drabu
Project Director, Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, UK (MINAB)
Mr Henry Grunwald
President, Board of Deputies of British Jews
Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian
Primate, Armenian Orthodox Church of Great Britain
Mr Sanjay Jagatia
Secretary-General, National Council of Hindu Temples UK (NCHT)
The Most Revd Dr Idris Jones
Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway
Primus, Scottish Episcopal Church
Mr Ramesh Kallidai
General Secretary, Hindu Forum of Britain
Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi
Founder & Director, The Britslam Partnership.
Commissioner Elizabeth Matear
Moderator of the Free Churches Group
Ayatollah Sayyid Fazel Milani
Al-Khoei Foundation
Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra
Chairman, Religions for Peace, UK
The Most Revd Barry Morgan
Bishop of Llandaff,
Archbishop, The Church in Wales
His Eminence Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor
Archbishop of Westminster, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the UK
Mrs Ravinder Kaur Nijjar
Sikh Community, Scotland
His Eminence Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien
Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, President of the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference
Mr Jitu Patel
Chairman, Baps Swaminarayan Sanstha
Rabbi Danny Rich
Chief Executive, Liberal Judaism
Dr Nawal Prinja and the Rt Revd Tom Butler
Sir Jonathan Sacks
Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth
Venerable Bogoda Seelawimala Nayaka Thera
Sangha Nayaka of Great Britain
Head of the Sri Lankan Sangha Sabha of Great Britain
Head of the London Buddhist Vihara
The Most Revd & Rt Hon Dr. John Sentamu
The Archbishop of York
Dr Indarjit Singh, CBE
Director, Network of Sikh Organisations UK
Dr Natubhai Shah MBBS, PhD
Chair, Jain Network
Sir Sigmund Sternberg, KCSG
Co-Founder, Three Faiths Forum,
Senior Advisor, Community of Religious Leaders, World Economic Forum,
Patron, International Council of Christians and Jews,
Vice President, World Congress of Faiths
The Most Revd and Rt Hon Dr. Rowan Williams
The Archbishop of Canterbury

What connects an academic, a blogger, a Nobel prize winner, a postgraduate researcher, a cyber feminist, a journalist and a woman who let her head covering slip? The answer? They have all had their freedom to express themselves violated. They have all been imprisoned, flogged and fined in Iran.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Today, Iran severely restricts such freedom. Human Rights Watch, the UN Secretary General and numerous others have recently observed an escalation in attempts to silence Iranians who have something to say.

But now a new embargo on freedom of expression has formally been announced. Iran’s Prosecutor General, Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, has declared that the very expression of affiliation to the Bahá’í faith is illegal. This was communicated in a letter to the Minister of Intelligence, Ghulam-Husayn Ejeyee, who needs no encouragement to violate rights. Human Rights Watch named him one of Iran’s ‘Ministers of Murder’ four years ago.

According to the Prosecutor General, everyone is free to have his own belief and faith. “However, no expression or declaration in order to disparage the thought of others, nor any attempt to teach them resulting in deception and agitation of minds is permitted.”

He goes on to determine that “the administration of the wayward Baha’i sect at all levels is illegal and forbidden … their danger to national security is documented and well-established.”

A few days later, the Prosecutor General made the rather fantastic claim that Bahá’ís in Iran are provided with all facilities afforded other Iranian citizens, and are respected as human beings, “but not as insiders, spies, or a political grouplet supported by Britain and Israel to cause disturbance in Iran”. Much kindness had always been shown Bahá’í citizens of Iran, he asserted, but there was “opposition to the relations of many of them with the enemies of the Iranian nation and particularly with Israel.”

The spurious nature of such assertions are obvious to anyone with the most basic knowledge of the Bahá’í faith, the persecution it has faced in Iran on religious grounds for more than a century, and the historical events which led to its Prophet being banished in 1868 to a remote corner of the Ottoman empire, which now happens to sit within the borders of modern-day Israel.

The broader implication of the Prosecutor General’s statement, however, is that it is possible to legally separate out a (generous) respect of religion or belief from its (dangerous) expression or declaration. This is apparently on the grounds that such expression would disparage, deceive and agitate others, destroying the “edifice of the Iranian belief system” and threatening “national well-being and welfare”.

What we are being told, therefore, is that the Iranian belief system is unitary and very vulnerable to the free expression of some bloggers, some morally loose women and some journalists – but all Bahá’ís, all 300,000 of them that make up Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority.

Human Rights instruments depart from this perspective. How is it possible to single out one religious community and deny it any expression of its values? How can full religious freedom go hand in hand with the criminalisation of any expression or activity – personal or public – that may flow from it? UN standards recognise freedom of thought, conscience and religion as being far-reaching and profound; they encompass freedom of thought on all matters, personal conviction and the commitment to religion or belief, whether manifested individually or in community with others. The fact that the protection of religion or belief necessarily includes the protection of its expression is beyond dispute.

That said, it is the individual’s having, adopting or changing a religion or belief that is absolute. Manifestation can be limited when prescribed by law and necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

The Prosecutor General claims that all religious expression by Bahá’ís – regardless of what form it takes, what medium it uses and whether it is expressed in worship, observance, practice or teaching – is dangerous and therefore illegal. He does not demonstrate exactly what need this outright criminalisation serves, nor does he convince us why it is necessary and proportionate. The UN states that any limitations placed on this right “should not involve discriminatory purposes or be applied in a discriminatory manner”. It would be hard in this case to claim it is otherwise. It would also be hard to not be alarmed at this development, considering UN evidence that the Iranian government instructed all of its agencies back in October 2005 to identify and monitor the activities of every single Bahá’í in Iran.

If Iran imagines that the singling out of a religious minority for criminalisation – whilst asserting a policy of kindness and respect towards it – can possibly be believable, then why was its most recent report to the UN Human Rights Committee submitted more than 17 years ago? Perhaps the Prosecutor General has forgotten that on that occasion the Human Rights Committee criticised Iran in no uncertain terms, stating that the Committee was “particularly disturbed about the extent of discrimination against followers of non-recognized religions, notably the Baha’is, whose rights under the Covenant are subject to extremely severe restrictions. In the foregoing connection, the Committee received no satisfactory answer regarding the destruction of places of worship or cemeteries and the systematic persecution, harassment and discrimination of the Baha’is, which is in clear contradiction with the provisions of the Covenant.”

The outright prohibition on all declaration or expression of Bahá’í belief along with the ban on all their organisational structures, is all the more devastating for a community which does not have a clerical religious structure and is entering its thirty-first year of severe persecution.

Iran’s criminalisation of the freedom of expression rights of hundreds of its Bahá’í citizens does not bode well for the wider cause of opinion, thought and conscience. In September last year, International PEN expressed alarm at increasing and widespread violations. The situation has just got a lot worse.

“We are very disturbed by these events…this is a shocking development,” wrote the Bahá’í Council for Northern Ireland in a statement to the Community NI website, a portal for the community and voluntary sector managed by the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action.

“…we thought these days were over,” the letter continues. “We are heartened by the united response from all the political parties and urge everyone to support initiatives to bring the community together at this difficult time.”

The Bahá’í community also extended its sympathy to the family and friends of those killed – Sapper Mark Quinsey, Sapper Cengiz Azimkar and Constable Stephen Carroll – and to the wounded and their families.

“We extend our support to the clergy of all denominations that are helping the families at this difficult time and we will remember them all in our prayers,” said the statement signed by Afnan Hashemi-Zadeh, Secretary of the Bahá’í Council.