Dissident Watch: Fariba Kamalabadi

by Vargha Taefi and Nazila
Ghanea
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2009, p. 96

http://www.meforum.org/2403/dissident-watch-fariba-kamalabadi

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Fariba Kamalabadi, 47, who had been
serving in a voluntary capacity on an Iranian Baha'i body known as the
Yaran (The friends) since 2006, was detained at her home on May 14, 2008,
and then taken to Tehran's Evin Prison. Simultaneously, five of her
colleagues on the Yaran were also arrested and taken to Evin while a sixth
had previously been arrested in Mashhad on March 6, 2008. Amnesty
International recognizes all seven as prisoners of conscience.[1]

Fariba Kamalabadi
(standing-L) with six other Baha'is arrested last year in Iran.
(Baha'i World News Service)

After Kamalabadi endured months of
incommunicado detention, mistreatment, and denial of heart medication,[2] Tehran's deputy prosecutor general for
security affairs, Hasan Haddad, announced on February 11, 2009, that the
seven would be tried on charges of espionage for Israel, insulting
religious sanctities, and propaganda against the Islamic Republic of
Iran.[3]

Then, in response to an announcement
by Iranian attorney general Ayatollah Qorban-'Ali Dorri-Najafabadi that
all Baha'i establishments run counter to Iranian constitutional law, the
Baha'i community in March 2009 disbanded the Yaran and all other Baha'i
organizations in Iran. Dorri-Najafabadi further announced that the very
declaration of Baha'i belief is illegal.[4] The government requires Baha'is to declare their
religion—for example when registering births, seeking inheritance,
applying for business licenses, or registering for school—so this
declaration puts Baha'is in a situation of having to engage in illegal
activity.

When the Yaran was operational—with
the full knowledge and tacit agreement of the Iranian authorities—it was
recognized by Iran's three hundred thousand Baha'is as their informal
organizational body. Since Baha'is do not have a clerical religious
structure, this body handled all community needs.

Kamalabadi is not new to religious
discrimination. She had wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and
become a physician, but university entrance was denied her in the early
1980s on religious grounds—no Baha'i has completed university studies
since then. When the Baha'i community in Iran established the Baha'i
Institute for Higher Education in 1987, Kamalabadi was among the first
group of students to graduate and later completed her postgraduate degree
in education, specializing in developmental psychology.

Kamalabadi faced arrest twice in
2005: first in a raid at her home by officers of the Iranian Ministry of
Intelligence on May 25, 2005, after which she was held for thirty-five
days, twenty-two of which she spent in solitary confinement. Later that
year, she was seized while traveling and detained in Mashhad and later
Evin Prison, spending nearly two months in solitary confinement. During
her period of captivity since 2008, Kamalabadi has only been afforded a
handful of visits with her family and has been denied access to her
lawyer, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.

While Kamalabadi is not alone in the
battle for free expression in Iran, she has become a symbol for those
seeking religious freedom and the right to say who they are and for what
they stand.

Vargha Taefi, the son of
Fariba Kamalabadi, has studied at the Baha'i Institute of Higher
Education and at the University of Leicester; he is currently a Ph.D.
candidate at the University of Warwick. Nazila Ghanea is a
lecturer in international human rights law at the University of Oxford
and editor-in-chief of the international journal of Religion and
Human Rights.

[1] Amnesty International, May
15, 2008, Aug.
6, 2008, Feb.
12, 2009.
[2] Radio Free Europe,
Feb.
17, 2009.
[3] Press TV (Tehran),
Feb.
15, 2009.
[4] Journalist Club,
Feb. 19, 2009; Baha'i International Community to
Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, attorney general, Islamic Republic
of Iran, Mar.
4, 2009; Baha'i World News Service, Mar. 6, 2009; Iran Press
Watch, Mar.
12, 2009.

Related Topics: Iran

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