A family member of an Iranian man arrested without charge in his home country in January has said he has been subjected to mock executions, beatings and electric shocks in custody.
Sama Sabet, who was born in India to Iranian parents, has lived in Dublin for the past year. She is a relative of Peyvand Naimi (30), who was arrested at his workplace. He is a member of the Bahá’í faith.
Sabet said Bahá’ís have been persecuted in Iran since the religion was established in the 19th century. Persecution intensifies “when the nation is going through some crisis and then they are used as scapegoats,” she said.
According to figures published by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) and the Bahá’í International Community (BIC), nearly 80 Bahá’ís have been detained or imprisoned since February andmore than 400 cases of abuses documented, including violent home raids, unlawful property seizure and obstruction of justice.
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Sabet said Naimi, a distant cousin who works as a dog trainer, was told some time after his arrest that he had been detained for rejoicing in the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes on February 28th.
Due to his imprisonment, “he had no way to receive any communication that the supreme leader had passed ... another false allegation”, she said.
A charge of killing three members of Iran’s Basij militia was added, despite Naimi being in detention at the time of the alleged attack.
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Sabet said he was then sent for two mock executions, during one of which he was told to say his last prayers. In the second, a stool was kicked from beneath him before the incident was stopped.
“These are all tactics to claim a false confession,” said Sabet, adding that her relative had already been made to falsely confess on state television.
When he refused to do so a second time, he was subjected to “continuous torture” including electric shocks, being tied to a wall, beaten “constantly for days”, and has had food and medicine withheld from him.
“Usually these kind of tactics are used to break you emotionally, psychologically. They humiliate you, they make fun of your religion or your principles to break you down completely so that you reach to a point where you make a false confession.”
Naimi’s cousin Borna Naimi (29), a karate instructor, was also arrested on “false allegations” and has been subjected to torture.
He was threatened that his three-year old daughter would be sent to a state orphanage if he did not confess.
Sabet added that, alongside Peyvand and Borna Naimi, “a long list” of other young members of the Bahá’í faith have been arrested.
She said members of the Bahá’í faith have “no protection from courts. If Iranian citizen decides to murder us or harm us, he or she is not subjected to any legal accountability; they might be even rewarded.”
When members of the Bahá’í faith are arrested, “they’ll say something as simple as, ‘You’re the enemy of God,’” she said.
The family remain hopeful both will be released.
“These two people ... are being scapegoated and it’s just national crisis that the country is in.”
In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs said: “Ireland consistently calls on Iran both bilaterally and in multilateral fora to ensure full respect for its international human rights obligations and to take all necessary steps to protect the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, including the Bahá’í community and individual cases.”
Department officials regularly meet representatives of the Bahá’í community in Ireland to discuss the persecution of religious minorities in Iran, including the cases of Peyvand and Borna Naimi, the statement added.
“Ireland condemns all forms of torture and ill-treatment and is deeply concerned by the continued use of arbitrary detention and the death penalty in Iran.”
