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Iranian government campaign to incite hatred against Bahai'is shows new facets.

Article Excerpt
The bulldozing of a Baha'i cemetery in Iran in September is the latest in a series of incidents in a government-led campaign of hatred against Baha'is.

The cemetery was destroyed sometime between 9-10 September near Najafabad. It followed a similar incident in July, when a Baha'i cemetery in Yazd was also extensively damaged by earth-moving equipment.

Both events add to a growing list of anti-Baha'i incidents--and to the list of human rights violations in general--in Iran.

In Najafabad, a few days before the destruction of more than 100 Baha'i graves, threatening letters were delivered to some 30 Baha'i families. In May, in Mazandaran province, the unoccupied homes of six Iranian Baha'is were set on fire. In June, in Abadeh, vandals wrote hateful graffiti on Baha'i houses and shops.

Since May, Baha'is in at least 17 towns have been detained for interrogation. Six new arrests have been reported. In Kermanshah, a 70-year-old man was sentenced to 70 lashes and a year in prison for "propagating and spreading Bahaism and the defamation of the pure Imams." In Mazandaran, a court has once again ruled against three women and a man who are charged...

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