| ←277 | Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1986-2001 Imprisonment of Four Bahá’ís in Iran |
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| 28 JULY 1998 |
To selected National Spiritual Assemblies
278.1 You may have seen the BBC Newsfile report that on 26 July 1998 Radio Tehran and Iranian television quoted the President of the Tehran Revolutionary Tribunal, Mr. Gholam-Hossein Rahbar-Pour, as saying, "Essentially, none of the branches of the court has issued a death sentence for a person named Ruhollah Rowhani, affiliated to the Bahá’í sect. The report of his execution is a total lie." The report goes on to say, "None of Iran's provincial revolutionary courts had issued such a sentence either, he added." A similar release was made by Agence France Presse. This statement by a leading representative of the Iranian judiciary is very significant, in that it conforms to the Islamic Revolutionary Government's normal practice of denying that the Bahá’ís are persecuted in Iran.
278.2 Contrary to the statement of Mr. Rahbar-Pour, the facts are as stated in our previous letters about the execution of Mr. Rúḥu’lláh Rawḥání, namely that he was arrested in Mashhad in September 1997 on the specious charge of having converted a young Muslim, was held in solitary confinement for almost the whole of his detention, and was executed on 21 July 1998, the day after his family had been permitted to visit him for the first time since October the previous year. The family was summoned to collect his body and required, despite their protests, to complete the burial within one hour, under the supervision of the Intelligence Department.
278.3 It has since been established that the authorities gave the family no documentation about Mr. Rawhání—no court verdicts or death or burial certificates. His death certificate was seen, however, and on it was written that the cause of death was suffocation. A security officer tore up this certificate in front of the family, and arranged for another doctor to write a new death certificate, giving the cause of death as internal disease.
278.4 The House of Justice was also informed a short time ago that the trial of four Bahá’í prisoners in Mashhad—Mr. Sírús Dhabíḥí-Muqaddam, Mr. Hidáyat-Káshifí Najafábádí, Mr. ‘Aṭá’u’lláh Ḥamíd Naṣírízádih and Mr. Rúḥu’lláh Rawḥání—took place in the month of Bahman (January/February) this year, and that they were all sentenced to death. The Supreme Court in Tehran confirmed the death sentence only in the case of Mr. Rawḥání, and, for technical reasons, returned the cases of the other three to Mashhad for a retrial, which took place on 29 April. The prisoners were not permitted to hire their own lawyers, but their defense was presented by one appointed by the court. The prisoners objected to some of the statements of the advocate on their behalf, and a heated argument between him and the prisoners took place in court. The prisoners were told that the verdict of the court would take about three months to be issued.
278.5 The families of the three prisoners were recently given permission to visit them every second Tuesday. The date of the next scheduled visit is 28 July. The families are greatly concerned that what happened with Mr. Rawḥání may happen with these prisoners—he was executed the day after the family visit. The Intelligence Department brought the three prisoners to the memorial service for Mr. Rawḥání. This was a most unusual thing to have happened, and it is feared that it may also be an indication that they may expect the same fate. . . .
- DEPARTMENT OF THE SECRETARIAT
