A 90-year-old man is among dozens arrested in past weeks in a new crackdown by Iranian authorities against Bahais, Iran's largest non-Muslim religious minority, a group said Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency.
In the latest crackdown, almost 60 Bahais were reported to have been arrested in Iran in the last weeks, said the Bahai International Community (BIC), which defends the interests of members of the faith.
Another 180 incidents of persecution, such as interrogations or raids against businesses, have been recorded in recent weeks, BIC said in a statement.
Those arrested include Jamaloddin Khanjani, a 90-year-old who had already served 10 years in prison.
Khanjani, a former member of a now disbanded informal leadership group for the Bahais in Iran, was detained with his daughter Maria Khanjani on Sunday.
Two other former members of the group, Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, who were arrested in July 2022, received confirmation of their 10-year prison terms which were upheld this week on appeal, said BIC.
Acclaimed writer and poet Sabet, 70, suffers from significant health issues and has been transferred to hospital from prison numerous times in the past year, it added.
Like Khanjani, Sabet and Kamalabadi had completed previous 10-year sentences and were released in 2018.
Iran bans the Bahai faith, which was founded in the 1860s by a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by his followers.
The Islamic Republic considers the Bahai faith a heretical offshoot of Islam and accuses its followers of ties to Israel because a main Bahai shrine is located in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
In 2013, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a fatwa, urged Iranians to avoid all dealings with members of the banned Bahai sect.
In 2015, the US Senate condemned Iran’s persecution of the Bahai and urged Iran to free jailed members of the Bahai faith.
This past September, security forces in northern Iran arrested 12 followers of the Bahai faith and accused them of being "Zionist spies".