The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has stepped up its pressure on the countrys Bahai community by preventing members of the faith from obtaining national identity cards, confiscating their property, and arresting and searching their homes.

According to the Bahai World News Service, these measures are part of the increased persecution of the Bahais community in Iran.

In the past few months, the Bahai minority in Iran no longer have the right to receive new smart national ID cards after the countrys Revolutionary Guard Corps removed the other option for religious affiliations other than Muslim from Irans new application forms.

This change has brought a series of hardships to the Bahai community, which was founded in Iran in the middle of the 19th-century. Without a national identity card, a member of the Bahai community is barred from obtaining a drivers license, acquiring a passport, and opening a bank account or transferring money.

The Islamic Republic has also seized houses and farmland from the Bahai community, most of which have been owned by members of the faith for generations.

A court has ruled that all properties belonging to Bahais in the village of Ivelsome of which they have owned since the mid-19th Centurybe confiscated on the basis that Bahai have a perverse ideology and therefore have no legitimacy in their ownership of any property, according to a report from the Bahai World News Service.

Bani Dugal, the Principal Representative of the Baha International Community, has called upon to the international community to shine a spotlight on these issues, which represent a major further deterioration

UN Special Rapporteur to Iran, Javaid Rehman, stated that the Bahai are considered unprotected infidels by the Islamic Republic.

According to UN estimates, there are about 350,000 Bahai believers in Iran, making it the countrys largest religious minority. Bahais are usually imprisoned on vague charges and denied public education on the basis of their faith.

The Bahai faith, based on Shiite Islam, believes the values of unity and equality of all people. The Bahai also believe that religion is orderly and progressively revealed by one God through the Manifestations of God,who are the founders ofmajor world religionsthroughout history;Buddha,Jesus, andMohammad. Three principles are central to these teachings: the unity of God, the unity ofreligion, and the unity of humanity.

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Iran intensifies its campaign of oppression against the Baha'i community - New Europe