The Detentions from March 2008 to May 2008... continued persecution of the Baha’is in Iran

• Miss Haleh Rouhi, Mr Sasan Taqva and Miss Raha Sabet: These three young Baha’is from Shiraz had been incarcerated on 19 November 2007 on the wholly unjustified grounds that the social service activities in which they and fifty other Baha’is as well as a number of their Muslim friends had been engaged, were being used as a subterfuge to teach the Baha’i Faith. In April they were granted temporary release for five days, with permission to extend this release. It is understood from reports received from their families that the three Baha’is did remain free for the additional five days, at the end of which they returned to the detention centre of the Ministry of Intelligence in Shiraz, where they continue to be confined.

• The fifty Baha’is from Shiraz whose three-year prison sentences were suspended conditional upon their regular participation in classes conducted by the Islamic Propaganda Organization began these sessions on 3 March 2008. Separate classes are held for men and women and on different days. The three-hour long sessions, which consist mainly of recitation of Qur’ánic verses followed by discussion in a question and answer format, are held once every two weeks.

• In March 2008, Mr. Mohammad Ismael Forouzan from Abadeh, who had been arrested in May 2007, and whose appeal had been heard in November 2007, was called to the office of the Ministry of Intelligence and immediately detained upon his arrival. Officials informed him that his appeal had been denied and that his one-year imprisonment had begun on that same day. Mr. Forouzan is forty-two years of age, married, and has two children.

• In March 2008, Messrs. Touraj Amini, Iraj Amini, and Payman Amoui were arrested on the charge that they had been teaching the Faith at their place of work.