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Advocates’ concern over arrest of Baha’i leaders

Special Correspondent

Fali S. Nariman, Soli J. Sorabjee write to Iranian envoy

NEW DELHI: Eminent Supreme Court advocates Fali S. Nariman and Soli J. Sorabjee have written to the Iranian Ambassador here articulating their concern over the recent arrest of seven Baha’i leaders in Iran.

In their letter, Mr. Nariman and Mr. Sorabjee said: “We are extremely concerned that till date, two weeks after their arrest, their whereabouts are still unknown. None of the persons arrested has been given access to legal counsel, their relatives have had no contacts with them and there has been no indication that any charges have been laid against them.”

The two advocates also pointed out to the Ambassador his country’s legal obligations under international law to uphold the basic rights of the detainees. A similar letter has also gone to the Ambassador from the Director of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Maja Daruwala, who fears “a repeat of the infamous time in the 1980s when a large number of Baha’i leaders were abducted, disappeared, rounded up and summarily killed.”

While six Baha’i leaders were arrested in Tehran by the government intelligence agents on May 14, the seventh member of the national coordinating group was picked up in early March. On May 20, an Iranian Government spokesman indicated that the Baha’i leaders – two of them women -- were arrested on issues of state security because the group was an “organised establishment linked to foreigners.”

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