U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Criticizes Religious Freedom Violations in Iran and Saudi Arabia

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom held a virtual hearing on Wednesday, December 8, examining the impact of restrictions on religious freedom and the imposition of a single religious interpretation by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

At the beginning of this virtual hearing, Nadine Maenza, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, addressed instances of religious minority rights violations in Saudi Arabia and Iran, including the suppression, forced confessions, and execution of Shiite Muslims by Riyadh, as well as systematic violations of Bahai rights and execution of Sunni Muslims by Tehran.

Violations of religious freedom for women in both countries, including male guardianship over women and the arrest of women opposed to mandatory hijab, were among the other issues that Ms. Maenza addressed.

Continuing the virtual hearing, Anuradha Bhagwati, Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, referred to methods of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and Iran such as the use of electric shock, physical torture, flogging, and solitary confinement against religious and faith minority activists, and specifically addressed the arrest, torture, and death of Behnam Mahjoubi, a member of the Gonabadi Dervishes, in Iran.

Ms. Bhagwati also referred to repeated violations of LGBTQ+ rights and threats to their lives by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia based on their interpretation of religion.

Extraterritorial actions by Riyadh and Tehran against human rights activists opposing them, including the Islamic Republic’s failed attempt to kidnap Masih Alinejad, a women’s rights activist and host of a Voice of America program, was a central subject of another part of Ms. Bhagwati’s remarks.

Following this, a video message from Mohammad Ali Taheri, founder of Erfan-e Halal, was broadcast to the hearing, in which he criticized the Iranian government’s narrow interpretation of religion and the actions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps against him and Erfan-e Halal, while expressing hope that the Commission would support Erfan-e Halal followers.

After Mohammad Ali Taheri’s video message, Ted Deutsch, a Democratic representative from Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives, spoke.

At the beginning of his remarks, Mr. Deutsch referred to the approaching seventy-third anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and mentioned some of his efforts in defense of promoting religious freedoms.

He then referred to harassment and unlawful detention of religious minorities in Iran, particularly followers of the Bahai faith. According to Mr. Deutsch, “Any threat or attack on one religious minority is a threat or attack on all of humanity.”

After Ted Deutsch, the first panel of the virtual hearing began with remarks by Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and former UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

At the beginning of his remarks, he referred to coercive actions by the Iranian government, particularly against religious and faith minorities, and stated that systematic violations of Bahai rights have made life in Iran unbearable for followers of this faith. Mr. Shaheed warned of the concerning trend of increasing violations of the rights of religious minorities in countries under the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran referred to the Islamic Republic government as a leader in antisemitism globally in another part of his remarks and also recalled the unlawful actions of this government against Iranian Christians.

According to Ahmed Shaheed, the United States and governments worldwide should support human rights defenders and activists and pay special attention to the Islamic Republic’s program for expelling Bahai followers from Iran. According to him, America should actively work against the Islamic Republic’s efforts to gain legitimacy in UN-affiliated institutions.

The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, in response to a question about changes in the situation of religious and faith minorities under the government of Ebrahim Raisi, said the situation has worsened. He added that since Raisi came to power, more repressive measures are being taken against religious and faith minorities, and he referred to the government’s treatment of Bahais as a “litmus test” of this issue.

Mr. Shaheed also said the Iranian government should not be allowed to act ambiguously on human rights and added that the Iranian government is vulnerable to social and civil pressure.

The second panel of the virtual hearing of the “U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom” began with remarks by Eric Goldstein, Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

In his remarks, Mr. Goldstein cited numerous instances of human rights violations in both Iran and Saudi Arabia, including their intolerance toward critics, the lack of an independent judiciary, high rates of capital punishment, intolerance toward religious and faith minorities, systematic gender discrimination, intolerance toward sexual minorities, severe censorship and surveillance of the internet, suppression of critics outside the country’s borders (such as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the abduction and execution of Rouhollah Zam), and support for repressive governments in the region.

In another part of his remarks, Mr. Goldstein briefly referred to the suppression of the Green Movement and the suppression of the November 2019 protests by the Iranian government and called on the United States to use international organizations to pressure the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia over human rights violations.

The second panel continued with remarks by Marjan Greenblatt, founder and director of the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities. Ms. Greenblatt began her remarks by referring to the number of prisoners from religious and faith minorities (Bahai, Sunni, Christian, and Dervish) in Iran and added that followers of these religions and faiths in the Islamic Republic of Iran are “second-class citizens.”

Ms. Greenblatt went on to cite examples of systematic discrimination by the Iranian government against Zoroastrians, Christians, Sunnis, Bahais, and Jews.

In another part of her remarks, referring to the dire human rights situation in marginal areas, she said that in Khuzestan, Baluchestan, and Kurdistan, religious and ethnic discrimination are “two sides of the same coin.”

At the end of the second panel, Hala al-Dosari, a researcher on women’s health and a Saudi women’s rights activist, addressed the dire human rights situation in her country.

Discrimination against religious minorities, a fatwa by a religious figure close to Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince, calling for the killing of government opponents, widespread arrests of independent religious figures not aligned with government ideology coinciding with bin Salman’s rise to power in 2017, hatred propaganda against Shiites, and the dire situation of Saudi women and insufficient government attention to their problems were the main points of Hala al-Dosari’s remarks.

Source: Voice of America