TEHRAN, Iran — Seven top leaders of the Baha’i faith who have been incarcerated in Iran since 2008 have each received jail sentences of 20 years after six months of court hearings that ended June 14, according to the Baha’i World News Service.
Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations, said lawyers plan to appeal the verdict. “The allegations are pretty irrational and aren’t very reasonable,” she said.
The seven leaders served Iran’s minority Baha’i community, which hard-line clerics in Tehran consider an illegal sect. The seven leaders served as an ad hoc group to meet the needs of the estimated 350,000 Baha’is in Iran, said Dugal.
The Baha’i faith does not have an ordained clergy but rather elected leadership in each local community. Although unelected, “they were assisting the community” with administrative affairs, marriages and other rites, she said.
Of the two women and five men, six have been in jail since May 2008 and one since March 2008. They have had limited contact with outsiders except occasional visits with family, Dugal said. “The conditions are not good from what we hear,” she said.
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