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Prayers requested for religious prisoners in Iran
By Zach Markovic, zmarkovic@acnpapers.com
Many find solace in their prayers, others find tranquility. For one religion they hope to find strength to sway hearts and minds.
The Baha'is will conduct a mass prayer vigil this Sunday to pray for seven members of the faith who have been imprisoned in Iran for nearly two years. The prisoner’s trial begins Sunday in Tehran, Iran. While reported charges accuse the seven of espionage, those in the Baha’i faith said the imprisonment stems from the persecution of their religion.
A Baha’i representative said the group believes in the power of prayer and wishes to get all faiths, not just those of Baha’i, to remember their imprisoned members in Iran in their prayers Sunday.
The Baha'i faith has been banned in Iran since 1979 and its members there persecuted. Practitioners are not allowed to go to public schools, marriages are not recognized, members jailed and businesses taken away. DeYoung said they have been persecuted for more than 30 years merely for their faith -- an independent world religion with roots in Iran whose main tenets are the unity of humanity, unity of all religions and equality of women and men, among other beliefs.
Payam Maveddat, a Baha’i resident in Plano since 1991, is well aware of the persecution faced by those of his faith. In 1981, two years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Maveddat’s parents were imprisoned for being Baha’is. His mother was imprisoned and tortured for weeks and finally released. His father, whose reported crimes were possession of Baha’i literature, teaching Baha’i children and being apart the community council, was asked to recant his faith after weeks of torture and he would be set free. He would not and was tried and executed in June of 1981.
Maveddat would be sent away for his protection by his mother. She would later escape Iran avoiding attempts to capture her by Iranian authorities.
“If you look at the history of persecution in Iran, this goes a long way, this has been a systematic approach that is not new within the government,” Maveddat said. “Once they executed my father they didn’t stop there. They went after my mother. Years later my father buried in a Baha’i cemetery, the Iranian government came in and bulldozed the area. It is a systematic technique to uproot the community in Iran, but they have not been able to get rid of us.”
As Iran faced a highly contentious election with protests erupting from the public over the outcome, some protesters have been executed with many still in prison. Maveddat said he fears the government will use this as a chance to execute the Baha’i prisoners.
“They try to divert the attention of the public with misinformation,” he said. “Trying to show the Baha’is are agents for the U.S. and spies for Israel. I fear their lives are at stake. The vigil is to pray for their safety.”
The seven Iranian Baha'is to be put on trial next week are accused of being "spies" for Israel and "spreading corruption on earth" among other accusations -- only for privately practicing their religion. They were placed into the Evin prison in Tehran almost two years ago and where basic civil rights have been ignored including not being allowed access to their lawyer. The seven prisoners are Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm
Simin Ziaie, a Baha’i in Lewisville, said she is childhood friends with Kamalabadi. She said she visited Kamalabadi last in 1997 and was able to talk to her in 2007. And then she finds out Kamalabadi was one of the seven arrested.
“I was numb,” Ziaie said. “I thought a lot of the heavy persecution was over.”
Ziaie said she has not been able to contact her since she went into prison, that Kamalabadi’s family even ahs had a difficult time getting in to see her. She said Kamalabadi’s brother has said she has become very frail and is suffering heart problems from the poor conditions in the prison.
If Ziaie was allowed to see her friend she said she would hope to comfort her and to stay strong, because the whole world is beginning to watch Iran for how they treat all of their citizens.
“The more problems that the Baha’i people have in Iran, the more their message will spread world wide,” she said.
Their imprisonment has been strongly condemned through appeals and resolutions issued by the U.S. State Department, House and Senate, the European Union, the British Parliament, Amnesty International among others, DeYoung said.
While the prayers from all faiths around the world have been requested, vigils for the seven spiritual leaders will occur in three locations in the DFW Metroplex:
From 2 to 4 p.m. in the Plano Baha’i Center on 4200 Hedgecoxe Road in Plano.
At 1:30 p.m. at the Lewisville Baha’I Center on 103 Katharine Drive in Lewisville.
And at 11 a.m. in the Dallas Bahai Center on 9400 Plano Road in Dallas.
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