File on Widespread Detention of Baha’is in Hamadan; 34 Summoned and Six Arrested
Radio Farda has learned that in a widespread detention of Baha’i citizens in Hamadan on November 7, the homes of 34 citizens were searched and six citizens were arrested in the process.
Accordingly, Atefeh Zahedi, Neda Mohammadi, Zarin Ahdizadeh, Zhale Rezaei Thoumad, Nura Ayoubi, and Farida Ayoubi were arrested, and other Baha’i citizens whose homes were searched were summoned to the news headquarters of the Ministry of Intelligence in Hamadan.
According to informed sources, the search of these citizens’ homes was accompanied by “excessive violence” and five to ten Ministry of Intelligence officers were used for each house search.
These officers used titles such as “electricity official, municipal worker, or postal worker” to enter homes, and in some cases “broke locks, kicked down doors, placed weapons on people’s heads, and conducted body searches to enter homes.”
Informed sources told Radio Farda that the violence used by Ministry of Intelligence officers was to such an extent that “in some homes, relatives suffered heart attacks and were taken to the hospital.”
During the search of these homes, Ministry of Intelligence officers took “gold, home documents, valuable items, money, modems, coins, phones, laptops, bank cards, smart watches, and personal documents such as passports and national IDs,” and eyewitnesses used the word “plunder” to describe their conduct.
On November 8, Radio Farda, coinciding with the announcement of the widespread detention of Baha’i citizens in Hamadan, also reported the arrest of nine Baha’i citizens named Shervin Shabrakh, Babak Zeinali, Sahba Taef, Nika Ismaeilpour, Iman Ehsani, Iren Rahmani, Fouad Taifi, and Reza and Fahimeh Yazdi in Mehr City, Karaj.
Previously, the International Baha’i Community announced in early November that in continuation of the increasing wave of harassment and persecution of this religious minority in Iran, 36 attacks against them have been carried out in cities such as Isfahan and Yazd, and 26 Baha’is, 16 of whom are women, have been sentenced to a total of 126 years in prison.
Source: Radio Farda
