The Bahá’í International Community (BIC) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Wednesday that Iranian authorities are dramatically escalating their state-sponsored repression of Baha’is, marked by a recent series of harsh prison sentences and asset confiscations.

The report documents over 750 incidents, including arrests, home raids and imprisonments, targeting members of Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority between June and November 2025. This latest wave of repression, which has often separated mothers from young children, follows a pattern of state-sanctioned discrimination rooted in a 1991 government memorandum.

For decades, authorities have systematically denied Baha’is the right to higher education, government employment, and the right to assemble. The Iranian judiciary, acting on policies from the country’s leadership, has weaponized vague charges like “deviant” educational activities and “propaganda against the state” to criminalize their faith. In April 2025, the European Union imposed sanctions on sections of Iran’s judiciary for these violations.

Bahar Saba, senior Iran researcher at HRW, condemned the actions, stating:

Iranian authorities are relentlessly persecuting Baha’is, depriving them of the most basic human rights in what amounts to ongoing crimes against humanity—solely because of their faith. There is virtually not a single aspect of the lives of Baha’is in Iran that has not been affected by these egregious violations and crimes under international law.

The BIC and HRW maintain that Iranian judicial and security officials are liable for widespread and systematic human rights violations under international law. The foundation for this condemnation includes Iran’s violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the nation has ratified, and the principles enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

However, the condemnation remains a limited tool against the entrenched state policy. While EU sanctions and UN reports address the symptoms of persecution, they cannot directly dismantle the legal and ideological framework within Iran that constitutes the root cause of the abuse. The UN Human Rights Council maintains a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, whose reports document these violations, but the Iranian government routinely dismisses such external scrutiny.