Next June 18 marks the fortieth anniversary of an unknown fact: the hanging of ten Iranian women of the Baha’i faith, killed for not having renounced their faith. The opportunity to retrace this moving story, which resonates with the Iranian people’s thirst for equality and freedom today.
They are called Mona, Roya, Simin, Shahin or Tahereh. Forty years ago, on that fateful June 18, 1983, by order of the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ten women from the Baha’i community were forced to watch, each in turn, the hanging of the previous one. The picture is chilling: ten silhouettes executed before dawn, without any witnesses, on Chogan Square in Shiraz, in the south-west of Iran. A place on which ordinarily ” we were playing polo says Jean-François Bourque, doctor of law and member of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Baha’is of France.
To commemorate this event, the international Baha’i community, a persecuted monotheistic religious minority in Iran, launched in May the campaign “ #Our Story Is One » (“Our story is one”) on social networks.
A slogan that intends to symbolize ” the universality of combat ” between the Iranians of yesterday and today, as well as paying homage to these dead women ” for not having failed in their values », notes Antoine Madelin, advocacy director of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). This hashtag is also a call for artistic creation. It encourages making a contribution echoing this episode of the past, which resonates with the national uprising current, since the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
Grim tale
Thanks to archival documents – photos, letters, official papers – recovered by the organization of the Baha’i International Community (BIC) and thanks to the investigations of the United Nations as well as those ” carried out by the representatives of the families of the victims “, explains Antoine Madelin, it is possible to trace this disastrous story.
End of 1982. Ayatollah Khomeini has been in power for three years. In Shiraz, security forces carry out a wave of arrests of Baha’i men and women, mostly young girls. The reason : “ Their involvement in educational activities for children, very important for the Baha’i community “Invokes Jean-François Bourque. At that time, in a few months, 200 Baha’is were executed, he says.
These ten women, most of them in their twenties, and the youngest aged 17, were arrested and then imprisoned for several months. When questioned in prison, the authorities tried by all means to make them renounce their religious beliefs. “ From what we know, these interrogations ended with the question : “why you don’t renounce and accept islam ?” However, these young women answered:But as Baha’is, we accept Islam, we recognize the divine truth of the Koran”, says Jean-François Bourque. The Baha’i confession is based, in fact, on a vision of unity, which recognizes all religions and all beings, as explained by Hirbod Dehghani-Azar, Franco-Iranian lawyer and member of the collective iran justice.
Hanged for not recanting their faith
To this day, no one knows how the decision to execute these young women was taken. ” The trial was so expedited that we don’t know exactly what the charges were. », indicates Jean-François Bourque.
Threatened with execution if they do not renounce their faith, the ten Iranian women nevertheless refuse to lie. For according to the precepts of their religion, the Baha’is do not practice concealment “. “ According to the testimony of the bus driver who took them to Chogan Square, these women were ready to die. They weren’t sad, they seemed happy, serene. To him it’s like they didn’t know they were gonna be killed “, he continues.
On the firing squad, Akhtar, Mahshid and the others are hanged one by one, “ without the families being informed of their fate “. Later, according to the account that is made of it, the latter were able to go to see the bodies, but were not authorized to give them a burial. It is not known exactly where the remains were buried, but according to Jean-François Bourque, ” they are thought to have been laid in a large Baha’i cemetery in Shiraz, which was later razed in 2014 and replaced by a sports complex. »
THE ” same fight » for a society based on freedom and equality
In a document written by the Baha’is of France, which brings together the words of the relatives of the victims, there is the testimony of Nahid Eshraghi. Her older sister, Roya Eshraghi, 23, and his mother Ezzat-Janami Eshraghi, 57, were both hanged on June 18, 1983. The father was also executed two days earlier. Nahid is the only one spared.
When I heard the news that my family – all three of them – had been executed, it was as if my head had been hit by a sledgehammer. For days it was impossible for me to swallow anything. My body rejected everything. I was in shock. But today, I’m better, because I know that my family held firm to their convictions, until the last breath. And taught me, their children and thousands of others that one should never submit to tyranny and injustice, even at the cost of one’s life. To great causes, great sacrifices.
– Nahid Eshraghi
If this unknown fact is commemorated, it is because ” these ten Baha’i women fought the same fight as the Iranian people today “says lawyer Hirbod Dehghani-Azar. A common struggle for individual freedoms, gender equality, religions, and a society “ where the state does not regulate the whole life and choices of individuals “, reports Antoine Madelin, Advocacy Director of FIDH.
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Baha’i community persecuted
Because in Iran, fundamentalist logic of the Islamic regime leaves no room for diversity “, attests Antoine Madelin. ” In the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, certain religions are recognized and others are prohibited. It is a country that statutorily creates gender and ethnic apartheid through its practices. “recalls Hirbod Dehghani-Azar, from the Iran Justice collective.
Currently, an estimated 300,000 Baha’is reside in the country and are continually the target of discrimination. Over the decades, there are many examples of violations of their rights : “ Murders, arrests, arbitrary detentions, confiscation of property, impossible access to higher education or obstacles to administrative procedures “, enumerates Antoine Madelin.
Rights swept away by the authorities, recalling, for Jean-François Bourque, that this regime perceives minorities ” as a threat and not as an asset for the country “. Faced with this observation, the campaign Our Story Is One therefore wishes to celebrate the union within the Iranian people and the acceptance of difference. In tribute to the ten deceased Iranian women, the Baha’is of France are also organizing an event Friday, June 16, at the Bahai National Center in Paris.
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