Eli Lake, Columnist

Iran's Secret Shunning of a Minority Faith

The Baha'i have been excluded from basic civic functions like pensions and education. They're publishing the proof.

January 30, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

A protest in Brazil on behalf of Baha'i prisoners in Iran.
Photographer: Ana Carolina Fernandes/AFP/Getty Images

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Usually the Iranian regime’s assault on its people’s dignity is measured in its political prisoners, its laws mandating modest dress for women, its prosecutions of gays and its stage-managed elections. An under-reported aspect of this story, though, is the state’s treatment of the Baha’i, a small monotheistic faith that was founded in Iran in the 19th century and that honors Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. In Iran, this minority faces systemic discrimination reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg laws or China’s treatment of the Falun Gong.

Its followers are denied government services, pensions and representation in the government. In every sense they are second-class citizens. And yet their fate is rarely discussed in the context of Iran’s freedom movement.