EYEontheUN adds a new human rights voice from Iran. As reported on CNN.com on July 28, 2008, a string of arson attacks have been carried out against the Baha'i minority in Iran.
The voices of these latest human rights victims need to be contrasted with UN inaction on human rights in Iran. EYEontheUN has compiled all UN actions condemning human rights violations the world over. For the abysmal UN record on Iran in all of 2007, click here. Iran is the 14th country most condemned for human rights violations by the UN - Israel is number one and the United States is tied for fourth place with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (The details on UN action on Iran can be found here.)
For a reality check of other non-UN views of what human rights violations are taking place in Iran check out this EYEontheUN page.
Iran: Religious minority reports arson attacks 
From CNN
"Iran's Baha'i community -- a religious minority that has faced persecution in the Islamic republic -- is reporting a string of arson attacks targeting homes and vehicles.
A house "went up in flames" in Kerman on July 18 only weeks after the residents' car had been torched, said Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations. Those incidents followed a series of threatening phone calls, Dugal said.
"As would be expected in the light of the mistreatment Baha'is in Iran are routinely receiving, the officials who investigated the fire either ignored or dismissed obvious signs of suspicious activity, including a muffled explosion, simply saying that it was the result of an electrical problem," she said.
The group also listed several incidents since February, and Dugal said there had been at least a dozen cases of arson targeting the Baha'is in the last 15 months.
...The attacks, reported on
Monday by the Baha'i movement, come on the heels of the arrests of
seven members of Iran's national Baha'i coordinating group in March and
May. The Baha'is say the seven have been jailed in Evin Prison in
Tehran without charge.
"These latest attacks follow the authorities' attempts to deprive the Iranian Baha'i community of its leadership," Dugal said.
"As Baha'is worldwide watch with alarm this escalation in violence ... their fears that a sinister plan of persecution is unfolding become increasingly confirmed. Their only hope is that enough voices of protests are raised around the world to compel the government in Iran to put an end to this violence."
...
The government has said
that the seven people recently detained were held for "security issues"
and that the Baha'is are members of a group working "against national
interest," a claim denounced by the Baha'is.
The Baha'is say the latest arrests are part of a pattern of religious persecution that began in 1979. That's when the monarchy of the Shah of Iran was toppled and an Islamic republic was created.
The Baha'is say members of its community have been killed, jailed and "otherwise oppressed" because of their religion.
Dugal
has said the government's philosophies were based largely on the idea
that there could be "no prophet following Mohammed" and that the faith
"poses a theological challenge to this belief."
The Baha'is regard their founder Baha'u'llah as the most recent in the line of Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Christ and Mohammed.
The Baha'is-- regarded as the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran -- say they have 5 million members across the globe, and about 300,000 in Iran."
Photo Source: Baha'i World News Service
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