Hengaw Special Report: New wave of pressure on the Baha’i community in Isfahan — Fabricated cases and forced complaints from friends and contacts
Hengaw – Saturday, June 28, 2025
In recent weeks, coinciding with the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, the Baha’i community in Isfahan has once again come under intense pressure from Iranian security forces, facing fabricated cases based on forced complaints from friends and neighbours as well as relatives.
According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, security agencies have recently summoned or contacted the relatives and personal contacts of Baha’i residents in Isfahan, threatening them to file complaints against their Baha’i friends and family members.
Sources reveal that a new wave of fabricated cases targeting Baha’is has begun. In some instances, neighbors of Baha’i families in Isfahan have been summoned and threatened that if they do not register formal complaints as private plaintiffs against their Baha’i neighbors, they will face serious consequences.
This strategy of forcibly turning people into private plaintiffs in security cases against Baha’is began in November 2023, following the arrest of ten Baha’i women, and has continued ever since.
On Monday, October 23, 2023, ten Baha’i women — Neda Badakhsh, Arezou Sobhaniyan, Yeganeh Roohbakhsh, Mojgan Shahrezaei, Parastoo Hakim, Yeganeh Agahi, Bahareh Lotfi, Shana Shoghi Far, Negine Khademi, and Neda Emadi — were arrested individually at their homes in Isfahan. They were later released on bail.
In early December 2023, following these arrests, the Ministry of Intelligence threatened their friends, neighbors, and non-Baha’i classmates, warning them that if they did not file complaints claiming these women had tried to “mislead” them, they would face serious repercussions.
Since then, fabricating cases based on forced community complaints has become a systematic tactic used against Baha’is in dozens of cases. Recently, following the Iran-Israel ceasefire, this tactic has intensified in Isfahan, with six Baha’is arrested in Isfahan, Rafsanjan, Shiraz, Qaemshahr, and Juybar. Meanwhile, the homes of dozens of Baha’is across Iran have been raided by security forces.
