anian authorities arrested 13 followers of the Bahai faith in the central province of Isfahan [GETTY]
Iranian authorities arrested 13 followers of the Bahai faith in the central province of Isfahan, accusing them of proselytising for their “misguided sect”, the Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday.
The Bahais, Iran’s largest non-Muslim minority, are branded “heretics” by the Islamic Republic and are often targeted over their alleged ties to Israel, home to their most important shrines and world headquarters.
“These individuals, who were illegally and indirectly promoting their religious deviation, were arrested by intelligence agents,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement carried by Iranian state news agency IRNA.
“These active missionaries were systematically creating ideological deviations and attracting Muslims to the misguided Bahai sect on the internet or through classes for children and adolescents, using artistic methods such as music, painting, etc,” it added.
Iran, where Shiite Islam is the state religion, recognises some minority faiths, including Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
The Islamic Republic, however, does not recognise the Bahais, who follow the teachings of Bahaullah, who was born in 1817 and is considered the prophet and founder of their monotheistic faith.
In 2023, authorities arrested several Bahais over links with Bayt al-Adl, the Bahais’ Universal House of Justice, in the coastal Israeli city of Haifa.
The group has complained of discrimination in Iran since the emergence of their faith in the second half of the 19th century, well before the 1979 Iranian revolution.
The Bahai community claims to have more than seven million followers worldwide, including some 300,000 in Iran.
