The Week:

By Mahin Siddiqui 

Marking 18 December as the International Day against Colonialism, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution that has condemned and confirmed the explicit cumulative impact of the Iranian government’s campaign against the Bahá’í community since 1979. The resolution was in direct response to the ongoing persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran (the birthplace of Bahá’ism), and the third week of December 2025 presents a more critical setting, which has been evolving into a more repressive state apparatus. The repression has transitioned from occasional harassment to what international bodies are now classifying as the abuse of human rights. Sociologically, cumulative impacts refer to the erosion of international recognition, including the denial of livelihoods, education, and the right to burial; these are no longer viewed as isolated incidents but as a carefully planned, longitudinal effort to erase the community as a viable social entity. Following the arrest of Bahá’í citizen Naveed Tashakor on 15 December for merely teaching and educating, his methods were immediately scrutinised and labelled as “propaganda through educational activity”. The state's radical attitude has enabled the “weaponising” of judicial mechanisms to achieve the ends of suppression.

A flexible way to justify the actions of the government is to change laws, and the recent escalation against Bahá’ís is due to Articles 499 and 500 of the Iranian Islamic Penal Code. These laws were amended in 2021 and reinterpreted merely to criminalise small religious structures deviant from mainstream Islam. The absurdity of the government is displayed in how Bahá’í women have become scapegoats for these laws and received sentences simply for teaching and organising art, English, and music classes for their children. The limited understanding of “propaganda” also includes yoga or nature excursions. To maintain a strict theocracy, these activities were labelled as “deviant promotional and educational activities contrary to Islamic law.”

The carefully curated onslaught of Bahá’ís has taken a gendered dimension; two-thirds of Bahá’í political prisoners are women, according to the latest data from Human Rights Watch. Analysed within the post-2022 “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (Woman, Life, Freedom) landscape, this targeting represents a strategic attempt to disrupt social reproduction. Since the faith emphasises gender equality and women are the drivers of social reproduction, they are systematically repressed and stripped away from their families by the state, thereby interrupting the transmission of cultural and religious values.

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