- 1948-00-05 — The Bahá'í centre in Tihrán was attacked by a mob incited by Áyatu'lláh Káshání. [BW18p390]
- 1979-02-01 — Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in France. On the 11th of February, the revolutionary government assumed power.
- 1991-02-25 —
In Iran, a secret government memorandum (known as the Golpaygani Memorandum) was drawn up by Iran's Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and signed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, which provided a blueprint of the policies and actions to which the Bahá'í community of Iran was to be subjugated. The memorandum demanded a shift in Iran's stance towards Bahá'ís from overt persecution to a more covert policy aimed at depleting the Iranian Bahá'í community's economic and cultural resources. This was a change in the policy for the Islamic regime which had openly persecuted and killed Bahá'ís during its first decade in power and had accused them of being spies for various foreign powers. The document also called for "countering and destroying their [Bahá'ís] cultural roots abroad." [Iran Press Watch 1407]
Signed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the memorandum established a subtle government policy aimed at essentially grinding the community into nonexistence by:
- forcing Bahá'í children to have a strong Islamic education,
- pushing Bahá'í adults into the economic periphery and forcing them from all positions of power or influence, and
- requiring that Bahá'í youth "be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Bahá'ís." [One Country; Iran Press Watch 1578]
- The memorandum can be found here, here and here.
- This document might have remained secret had it not been divulged to Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the Salvadoran diplomat who served as the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran between 1986 and 1995. Professor Pohl disclosed the document in 1993 during a session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (now replaced by the Human Rights Council). [BWNS575]
- 2008-05-14 —
Iranian Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri issued a fatwa stating that, since (Bahá'ís) were the citizens of Iran, they had the rights of a citizen and the right to live in the country. Furthermore, they must benefit from the Islamic compassion which is stressed in Quran and by the religious authorities. [The National (UAE)]
- Statement: English Translation
- 2014-09-08 — Ayatollah Hamid Masoumi Tehrani presented an illuminated calligraphic work of the words of Bahá'u'lláh to the Bahá'ís of the world. [BWNS1017; One Country 23.2]
- 2015-12-21 — Ayatollah Abdol-Hamid Masoumi-Tehrani, a senior Muslim cleric in Iran, had courageously called on his nation's people to uphold a higher standard of justice and dignity for all of their countrymen and women. In an article on his website, he dedicated a new piece of calligraphy—a passage from the writings of Bahá'u'lláh—to the Bahá'ís who were arrested on baseless charges in November 2015. [BWNS1089, BWNS987]
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