Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council in Iran, has criticized his daughter's meeting with a leader of the Baha'i community.
Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani said in an interview with the Islamic Republic newspaper: “Faezeh made a bad mistake and must correct and compensate for it.”
The publication of a photo of Ms. Hashemi meeting with Fariba Kamalabadi, a leader of the Baha'i community who had been released from prison for the first time in eight years, drew strong criticism from the media and conservative figures.
But Faezeh Hashemi, in response to these criticisms, told Euronews: "I have done nothing wrong and I have no regrets."
However, his father told the Islamic Republic newspaper that Baha'ism "is a colonialist and deviant sect that has always been known for this deviance, and we have always sought and sought to disavow this sect."
Read more: Reactions to Faezeh Hashemi's meeting with the director of the Baha'i community
In recent days, in addition to Faezeh Hashemi, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Sajideh Arabsorkhi, and a number of other political prisoners who were incarcerated with Ms. Kamalabadi in the past have visited her.
Fariba Kamalabadi is one of seven leaders of the Baha'i community who have been sentenced to 20 years in prison each for espionage, insulting religious sanctities, and propagandizing against the Islamic Republic.
The Baha'i international community and the families of these seven people have called these accusations baseless.
The US State Department issued a statement yesterday, Saturday, May 14, condemning the continued imprisonment of Baha'i community leaders in Iran and calling on the Islamic Republic's authorities to release these individuals, along with other prisoners of conscience, as soon as possible.
