Recent Iran Report: State-Sponsored Hate speech and disinformation against the Bahá’í Community in Iran

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Iranian government has pursued a systematic pattern of propaganda, both official and unofficial, against Bahá’í beliefs and the Bahá’í community. This has been done through the extensive use of mass media to portray the Bahá’ís as the source of every conceivable evil.

In recent years, the government-sponsored campaign of hatred against the Bahá'ís in Iran has been on the rise in all media platforms, including radio, newspapers, television and social media. Every month, hundreds of anti-Bahá’í articles and videos are published in Iran.

Some examples of the continual stream of such incitement to hatred under review includes, among other things, baseless accusations, slander and scapegoating of Bahá’ís; fatwas and statements made by clerics and government authorities about the rights of the Bahá’ís as a community, including in the international arena; the dissemination of falsehood from pulpits and at public exhibitions and events; the publication of book series, articles and journals under the pretext of research to portray the Bahá’í Faith as a predatory cult and apostates with immoral and perverse beliefs; and statements by the government and legal officials to legitimize abuses against Bahá’ís

The purpose of spreading and disseminating this false information and hateful propaganda is to demonize and vilify Bahá’ís and provoke public hatred against them on a daily basis. Bahá’ís in Iran are not given the right to reply to any of these baseless accusations, either in the media or via any other outlet.