In 1980 the Mullahs moved “to cut off the head” of the “heretical” Bahá’í movement by destroying its leadership, believing that the majority of the Bahá’ís would then surrender to social pressures and recant their Faith….This policy is reflected in the fact that nearly half the Bahá’ís executed in Iran since 1979 have been members of national and local governing councils of the Bahá’í community, known as Spiritual Assemblies.
On 21 August 1980, all nine members of the national Bahá’í governing council, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran, were abducted and disappeared without a trace. It seems certain that they were executed.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran was reconstituted through new elections but was again ravaged by the execution of eight of its members on 27 December 1981.
Executions continued apace through 1982, 1983 and 1984. At least 32 Bahá’ís were executed or killed in 1982, 29 were executed or killed in 1983, and 30 were executed or killed in 1984. And, again, the targets of these executions were often members of Bahá’í governing councils.
Four members of the National Spiritual Assembly, which had once again been courageously re-established through fresh elections, were executed in 1984, although by then the institution had been disbanded in accordance with a government decree and the individuals held no official position in the Bahá’í community.
This TV report (- originally aired about 1980) details some of the ” shocking details” of the implementation of the plan to destroy the Baha’i Community of Iran. Amnesty International, in the early 1980s, listed the persecution of the Baha’is by the government of Iran as the most serious human rights violation on earth….Sadly the persecutions continue today.
