Twitter Storm in Support of Iranian Bahai Citizens and Protest Against Confiscation of Their Properties
Following the confirmation of the property confiscation ruling for Bahai citizens of Evol village in Sari during the month of Mehr this year by the appeals court, Iranian users launched a Twitter storm by posting messages with the hashtag “Evol_Is_Their_Home.” This comes as reports published on social media indicate that these citizens and their lawyers have been denied access to the case file.
Meanwhile, Twitter users posted messages condemning the persecution and oppression of Iran’s Bahais with reference to the confiscation of these citizens’ properties and called for justice for Bahai citizens.
Zia Nabavi, referring to the Bahais of Evol village being forced from their homes, wrote: “Their houses were destroyed and their lands were placed under the control of the Headquarters of the Execution of the Imam’s Order to establish cultural centers for the propaganda of Mahdism.”
Sepehr Atefi, another Twitter user, wrote: “How can we believe in justice in such an apparatus? The Bahais of Evol have tried every legal avenue available in Iran and found no justice.” Another user named Afra, referring to her family’s experience and their migration from Evol village in 1362, says: “My grandfather along with other men in the family were driven out of their city, not just disappeared. Women and children were sent away earlier. He left his houses and gardens along with his brother’s corpse behind and never returned.”
Masih Alinejad, an independent journalist and host of the Tablet program at Voice of America, posted on his Twitter account by publishing a narrative video from Bahai citizens from the village of “Roshankuh” in Mazandaran: They too have been repeatedly displaced and their homes destroyed simply for being Bahai. My heart breaks when my grandmother describes the burning and destruction of our home in the early days of the revolution and then helplessly says: “My throat hurts.”
Voice of America previously announced in a report from the “Bahai World Community” organization that some Muslim leaders, government officials, and parliamentary representatives around the world expressed their deep concerns about the confiscation of property of citizens of the village of “Evol” in Sari by issuing statements in support of Bahais.
Dian Ala’i, representative of the Bahai World Community at the United Nations in Geneva, said in this report, a copy of which was sent to Voice of America: “The outlook of Muslim leaders around the world who come to the aid of their Bahai friends in Iran with such a remarkable wave of support shows the power for the Islamic Republic that Muslims are condemning their actions.”
The confiscation of Bahai properties in Evol began in the early years following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 2010, houses belonging to approximately 50 Bahai households in Evol village in Sari were burned and destroyed, forcing their residents to abandon their ancestral farms and homes.
Based on available information, the ruling for the confiscation of these Bahai citizens’ properties was confirmed by the appeals court in Mehr of this year, but it is said that neither the Bahais nor their lawyers were granted access to the case file.
According to the Bahai World Community news service, this new support came after Canada’s former Prime Minister and more than 50 Canadian human rights lawyers signed an open letter to Ibrahim Raisi, Iran’s Head of the Judiciary, expressing their “deep concern” about these confiscations.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom also expressed concern in early Esfand in its annual report regarding the state of religious and faith freedoms in Iran; a section of this report states that the Islamic Republic has increasingly targeted Muslim minorities, particularly Sunnis and Dervishes, as well as followers of other religions and denominations, including Bahais and Christians.
Source: Voice of America
