Zila Shahriiari, Bahai Citizen, Arrested to Serve Her Sentence and Transferred to Evin Prison
Hrana News Agency – Zila Shahriiari, a Bahai citizen residing in Tehran, has been arrested to serve her sentence and transferred to Evin Prison.
According to Hrana News Agency, the news organ of the Iranian human rights activists’ network, on Sunday, September 20, 1401 (September 11, 2022), Zila Shahriiari, a Bahai citizen, was arrested to serve her sentence.
An informed source told Hrana in this regard: “The prosecutor’s office of Evin Prison contacted Ms. Shahriiari and asked her to come to the prosecutor’s office to answer a few questions. When Ms. Shahriiari came to the prosecutor’s office, she was arrested and transferred to Evin Prison to serve her sentence.”
Zila Shahriiari was arrested in September 2016 by the Ministry of Intelligence along with a search of her residence and was released after 31 days upon posting bail.
After some time, this Bahai citizen was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment by Branch 28 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court under the presidency of Mohammad Moghisseh. The verdict was reduced to 2 years and 6 months imprisonment in the appeals court.
Bahai citizens in Iran are deprived of freedoms related to religious beliefs. This systematic deprivation occurs despite Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which state that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Based on unofficial sources in Iran, there are more than 300,000 Bahais, but Iran’s Constitution only recognizes Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism as official religions and does not recognize the Bahai faith. For this reason, the rights of Bahais in Iran have been systematically violated in recent years.
Source: Hrana
