UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations General Assembly voted on 20 December 1993 to express "deep concern" over continuing reports of violations of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran -- including the persecution of the Bahá'í community there.
The resolution, which passed by a vote of 74 to 23, warned that because of the discrimination faced by Bahá'ís in Iran, their "existence as a viable religious community is threatened."
"Given that the United Nations General Assembly represents the considered opinion of the community of nations, we are extremely gratified that the world has so explicitly called attention to the persecution faced by the Bahá'ís of Iran," said Mr. Techeste Ahderom, the main representative of the Bahá'í International Community to the United Nations.
"The resolution makes clear in no uncertain terms that the world community understands that Iran is persecuting Bahá'ís solely because of their religious beliefs, despite the Iranian Government's assertions to the contrary," said Mr. Ahderom.
"We wish to re-state that the Bahá'ís of Iran are a peaceful and law-abiding religious community that only seeks the right to freedom of belief and practice, as recognized under international human rights instruments to which Iran is a party," Mr. Ahderom added.
Since 1979, more than 200 Bahá'ís have been executed or killed in Iran, hundreds more have been imprisoned, and thousands have been deprived of employment and/or education. Although the pace of executions has slowed in recent years, there are still numerous and wholesale signs of religious persecution against the Bahá'ís of Iran.
The December resolution by the General Assembly follows closely the conclusions and recommendations made in a report in early November by Professor Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the special representative of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
In this year's report, Mr. Galindo Pohl said the Bahá'í community has for the last ten years been denied the right of assembly and the right to elect and maintain its administrative institutions.
"Those institutions constitute the core around which Bahá'í community life revolves," Mr. Galindo Pohl said. "Given that the Bahá'í Faith has no clergy, being deprived of its institutions threatens the very existence of the Bahá'í community as a viable religious community."
Mr. Galindo Pohl also said that the property rights of Bahá'ís continue to be disregarded, that many of the 350,000 Bahá'ís in Iran continue to be deprived of a means of earning a living, and that an entire generation of young Bahá'ís has been denied a higher education.
Throughout the year, there have been numerous signs of the continuing nature of the Government's involvement in the persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran. In June, the municipal Government of Teheran began to dig up and remove the bodies of Bahá'ís from a Bahá'í cemetery, to make way for the construction of a cultural center.
In September, a penal court in Shahr-i-Ray ruled that a murder conviction against two Muslim men, which would ordinarily call for the death sentence and the payment of "blood money" to relatives, was "inapplicable" because the victim was a Bahá'í.
While the court wrote that "it is proven and established that the accused...have jointly participated in the abduction and subsequent deliberate murder of Rúhu'lláh Qidamí," provisions of Islamic law calling for the death sentence and payment to relatives were inapplicable because the victim was "a member of the misled and misleading Sect of Bahá'ísm."
The two murderers were, however, sentenced to 18 months in prison
because, according to the court, "the action they have committed
is illegal, upsets public order and security, and disturbs the
well-being of the sacred order of the Islamic Republic...."