[IsraelTimes] Iranian authorities have arrested several followers of the Baha’i faith ...the Unitarians of Islam...
accused of spying for Tehran’s arch-foe Israel, local media in the Islamic Theocratic Republicreports today.
The Bahais, Iran’s largest non-Moslem religious minority, are not recognized by the state and often targeted over alleged ties to Israel — home to their most important shrines and world headquarters.
The Baha’i get picked on for stubbornly continuing to be a heretical offshoot of Islam even with almost two centuries of being shown the error of their ways. They’re accused of spying for Israel because the Baha’i big guy was exiled by Persia toward the end of the 19th century, ending up in Haifa — which later became part of Israel.
"A number of members at the core of the Baha’i spy party have been arrested in Gilan province" in Iran’s north, says Fars news agency, citing an intelligence services statement.Fars reports the group was alleged to have links "with the Zionist center known as Bayt al-Adl located in the occupied Paleostinian territories," referring to the Baha’is’ Universal House of Justice in the coastal Israeli city of Haifa.
The report doesn’t specify how many had been arrested.
The intelligence services also accuse the group of "promoting Baha’i teachings" particularly among children, according to Fars.
Iran, where Shiite Islam is the state religion, recognizes some minority faiths including Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.
Baha’is, however, are branded "heretics" by the Islamic Theocratic
RepublicIn August, authorities arrested a group of Baha’is and 12 more followers the following month, all on similar charges relating to alleged links to Israel.
Baha’is consider Bahaullah, born in 1817 in modern-day Iran, to be the latest prophet sent by God and founder of their monotheistic faith.
The group has complained of discrimination in Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
since the emergence of their faith in the second half of the 19th century, well before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The Baha’i community claims to have more than seven million followers worldwide, including some 300,000 in Iran.