Authorities conduct sham trials of Baha'is that invariably result in their conviction. The charges hurled at Baha'is by prosecutors, shouted by crowds in the streets, spread by the press, radio and television and glossed from the pulpit by the Shiite clergy are always the same. They include the promotion of prostitution, cooperation with Zionism, spying for imperialist powers, corruption on earth and warring against God.

This assault against the approximately 400,000 Baha'is is not confined to individuals not is it a mere outburst of religious passion. It is a case of well-planned genocide. The scope of the attack became clear a year ago when the entire national governing body of the Baha'is of Iran was kidnapped and disappeared without a trace. Allegations that the Baha'i faith is a political conspiracy serving the interests of foreign powers have been made by the Shiite clergy and the Government in Iran and by their representatives abroad. They contend that the Baha'is were favored by the Shah's Government and that they ran both the infamous secret police, SAVAK, and the Government. Stories make it appear that all the ills of a rapidly changing society are directly attributable to the machinations of an accursed group of heretics.

The hatred that a large segment of the Shiite clergy and the more retrograde elements of Iranian society feel for the Baha'i faith has nothing to do with politics. It is inspired by a primitive religious fanaticism. A century ago, before the modern notions of religious toleration penetrated Iran, the Islamic religious men did not bother to hide the true reasons for their hostility to the Baha'i faith. They saw it as a dangerous heresy and its followers as apostates who deserved death. That the Baha'is worshipped the same God and held the Koran to be divinely inspired scripture made matters worse. The Baha'is also believe in progressive revelation. They repudiated the notion that non-Moslems are unclean. They taught principles that the clerics found either incomprehensible or odious: universal peace and the unity of mankind, the equality of sexes, the harmony of religion and science, universal education. That the Baha'is have no clergy, trusting the leadership of their community instead to elective bodies, is an affront to the arrogant religious leaders.

Unlike Jews and Christians who belong to distinct ethnic groups and cultures, the Baha'is were Persian- and Azerbaijani-speaking converts from Islam. They were an organic part of the Iranian nation and could not be confined to a physical or spiritual ghetto, they could only be exterminated. And the Shiite clergy have long been trying to achieve this.

As times change, so change rationalizations and slogans. In the 20th century the Baha'i faith could no longer be attacked on purely theological grounds. Secularism has influenced the educated who embrace nationalism as a surrogate religion. To turn them against their Baha'i fellow citizens it was necessary to show that the Baha'is were unpatriotic. Their opponents resorted to lies, including the production of fake historical documents. During the revolution of 1906-1911, reactionary religious men in the Shah's camp charged that the Persian constitutional movement was a Baha'i plot to take over the country. Simultaneously those clerics who led that revolution in an uneasy alliance with a handful of liberals accused the Baha'is of supporting despotism. Neither side would acknowledge that the Baha'is, adhering to the principle of noninvolvement in partisan politics, remained neutral.

During the anti-Communist 1930's, the Baha'is were linked with Russia, Czarist and Soviet. When American influence in the Middle East increased after World War II, the Baha'is were linked by their opponents to the United States. More recently they have been accused of supporting Zionism. One may expect that soon they will be linked to Iraq or some other hostile power.

In spite of a century of persecution, Iran's Baha'is remain loyal to the country that is not only their homeland but also the land where their religion was born. However, their fate should not be hidden from the world by a veil of misrepresentation. Humanity should be aware of the plight of a peaceful, law-abiding community in the clutches of a relentless and unscrupulous foe.

Mr. BONKER. Thank you for your interest in this issue and your testimony today.

I will note for the record that the U.N. Commission on Human Rights which met in Geneva last February and March and which is an arm of the United Nations, has passed a resolution, albeit weak, on the Baha'is. They have invited the Government of Iran to extend its cooperation to the Secretary-General in conducting an investigation of the situation there.

You also mentioned that the Baha'is are a relatively small, mildmannered religious group that do not represent a threat to anybody. But I remember reading about the plight of the early Christians. They were fairly passive in their faith, and experienced considerable persecution during those early days.

Sometimes the more passive the faith, it seems to me, the greater the threat. History shows that other religions also experienced this persecution.

Mr. Hyde?

Mr. HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Derwinski. I want to congratulate you for your foresight.

You have been bringing this tragedy to the attention of Congress at least for a year, to my knowledge, and you took the floor in July of last year and called for these hearings. You also pointed out the persecution of the Baha'i people in Iran and rhetorically asking where Ramsay Clark was on this issue, who has been one of the great defenders of the new order in Iran.

The resolutions that are before us are useful. They are a statement of policy, but I just wonder if there is not more we can do. Resolutions don't really activate or motivate the objects of the resolutions very much.

Now, obviously, Iran is in difficulty, economic difficulty.

I see by the newspaper that we have as of April 27, 1982, the United States is going to buy 1.8 million barrels of oil from Iran, and I suppose this is in fulfillment of the hostage agreement, which is really a dark chapter in our history.

The fact is that we had to agree to certain terms to have them release some of our citizens and now we are going to live up to our word and be honorable people, but obviously we are carrying on commerce with Iran, which should be an outlaw-nation, and our strongest ally in the Middle East is a supplier of arms to the Iranians. We ought to have some leverage in that, but just passing resolutions does not save anybody's life.

I understand that within the framework of what I am saying that Iran is irrational in terms of talking to them across the table with a given set of premises and with a similar perspective, but isn't there something we can do more than pass resolutions condemning their action?

Mr. DERWINSKI. I would say that we should look upon this as the first step.

I would hope that we could in some way dramatize these resolutions. If I may point out, Mr. Hyde, a problem where we really have to in effect educate the people and, in fact, we have to start educating the media to the plight of these poor Baha'is. It is one thing to have the media concentrate on the Falkland Islands. They all discovered very quickly where they were once the crisis started. Everyone is an expert on the Middle East or the situation in Afghanistan from time to time, but this is something which has not really been called to the attention of the public around the world, and obviously not in areas where the press is closed.

The Soviet Union is attempting to manipulate contacts with the Government of Iran, and there won't be any criticism in the controlled Soviet press of what the Iranian Government does.

There are other religions also undergoing persecution-the Armenians, another people that have endured all sorts of tragedy over the years. They have a sizable community in Iran. They are subject to elimination of their school system, interference with their religious observances— things of that nature.

We have to somehow dramatize this, and we could look into the technical aspects or that oil purchase you mentioned.

My understanding is, we did embargo all commerce with Iran, and unless it is done through a third country or through an international consortium of some sort that operates through a third country, our sanctions would still apply.

Mr. HYDE. It is through a Geneva-based trading company, Gatoil International; they are just the middleman.

Mr. DERWINSKI. The Kurds are, in effect, an ethnic minority, and the Kurds have become political pawns in that area, in Turkey and Iraq, as well as in Iran.

It would be fair to say that the Kurds have again, like the Armenians and others, have had a long, long history in which their sufferings have been consistent; they were used in World War I as pawns in the manipulations at the time, and World War II, and yet they are being persecuted now by the Iranian authorities.

I have attended a couple of international conferences with delegates from Iran, from this new government-and I would be accurate if I said they almost are people from another world-it is impossible to communicate with them.

In fact, I found that the other Moslem representatives from countries such as Kuwait, Jordan, et cetera, found it impossible to communicate with the clergymen who have been representing the Iranian Government, an organization called the Interparliamentary Union. They are totally isolated from the world community and evidently prefer that.

Mr. HYDE. The Baha'is are important, but not an enormously-in terms of numbers-substantial group of people.

The Kurds are more isolated, and the Armenians. I am wondering if common cause cannot be made with all of these groups against a country, a regime that seems to be brutal in its treatment of the nonorthodox, and it seems to me if the rest of the world is going to treat them normally because their own ox is not gored, if the United Nations might consider imposing sanctions, as they do against South Africa, and we limit our trade with them, then maybe something could be accomplished, but as long as they are going to trade with them, business as usual, and as long as our biggest ally is going to be an ally of theirs over there in the Middle East, I am not optimistic that any immediate results will occur.

Mr. DERWINSKI. I do think that the point where we could at committee level and the support this subject deserves from the full committee, try to dramatize this issue so some attention starts to be focused on this issue. You are dealing with a small group of people who are relatively obscure in the eyes of the world community, and then you have a government that basically shuts its borders to a free flow of news. The few correspondents in Tehran are limited in where they could go and report, so you have a situation there where it is a basic lack of knowledge.

This subcommittee has a record of taking on tough subjects, and sometimes I may not have agreed with the chairman, but I have always agreed with the fact that he has been willing to go into issues that others would walk away from. I think this is one where all of us here would agree that we have an obvious persecution, and I use the word genocide in an attempt to eradicate a religious minority, and it is one of the great tragedies at the present time. The U.N. resolution was weak, and, unfortunately, that was a disappointment by the world body, and I think what we could do is to start at the long, necessary effort to get public opinion behind

our concern.

Mr. BONKER. The very fact that we are conducting hearings will serve to focus attention on the plight of the Baha'is. It has been our experience in the past that holding hearings and bringing forth witnesses who will disclose the extent of the persecution often has, in and of itself, been helpful. We are open to suggestions, ways we can deal with this issue.

There is quite a national community, either embracing the Baha'i faith or very sympathetic to their cause. Since the subcommittee has scheduled these hearings, I have encountered a number of people in my own district who are interested in the subject. They have either written to me or come forth at one of the many town hall meetings that I hold. I might add that in 4 years of chairing this subcommittee and dealing with a variety of human rights issues, this is the first time that anybody in my district has ever been aware of anything this subcommittee has done. It says something about the communication network that exists among the Baha'i community. They have a very strong faith and fraternal sense that draws them together in this common effort. If the Baha'is were to communicate with their own Members of Congress and to rally behind a resolution such as that submitted by Mr. Stark, or in some other form that might take shape in this Congress, that we might find something of a national movement.

Mr. Derwinski, once again, it is really a pleasure to have you before the subcommittee. I hope you can stay, because there might be other questions, and you are something of a resident authority on this subject.

Whatever is your pleasure.

The subcommittee would now like to recognize the Honorable Pete Stark, who is a Representative from the State of California, and who has the only resolution on this subject that has been introduced in the House, House Concurrent Resolution 283. We will include it as part of the official record as well as the Baha'i resolution of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

[The information follows:]

IV

97TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION

H. CON. RES. 283

Expressing the sense of Congress that the President and other official representatives of the United States should at every opportunity before international forums reiterate and emphasize the extent to which we deplore and condemn the religious persecution of peoples of the Baha'i faith by the Government of Iran.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MARCH 9, 1982

Mr. STARK submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense.of Congress that the President and other official representatives of the United States should at every opportunity before international forums reiterate and emphasize the extent to which we deplore and condemn the religious persecution of peoples of the Baha'i faith by the Government of Iran.

Whereas the Government of Iran has persecuted peoples of the

Baha'i faith, has killed more than one hundred individuals of the Baha'i faith since 1978, has jailed Baha'is unjustly, has confiscated and shut down Baha'i holy places and other community property, has banned Baha'i meetings, has dismissed Baha'is from public and private employment, has destroyed Baha'i homes and businesses, and has harassed or