Iran Seizes the Rings, the Toys and the Complaints

Dangerous readers

On September 13, intelligence agents raided two Baha'i homes in Yazd. In one of them, ten young Baha'is had gathered to read books together. Agents confiscated their phones, along with their host's laptop and tablet, without disclosing any legal basis. In the Islamic Republic, a reading group is apparently a cell. The next morning in Shiraz, security forces raided the homes of Sarina Zaeri, 20, Barbad Sepehri, 21, and Arshia Jaberi, 19, and took all three to an undisclosed location, according to Iran International and the rights group HRANA. Agents stayed at Sepehri's home from 6 to 10 a.m. Zaeri has a respiratory condition, and her family fears for her health.

Confiscating the complaints

On September 20, agents searched the homes of five members of the Zare family in Shiraz, and that of Pejman Zare's wife, Nazanin Nikouseresht. They took electronic devices, Baha'i books and images, passports, gold and foreign currency, with discriminatory remarks thrown in for free. They also seized the paperwork from the complaints Pejman Zare had filed over his previous detention. Having confiscated the complaints, the state then summoned the complainants: five family members were ordered to report to the Shiraz intelligence detention centre on September 23. No reason given, no charge disclosed.

The crime: the wrong religion

On September 23, it emerged that Romina Goli, a Baha'i from Sari, had been sentenced to five years, seven months and sixteen days in prison, plus ten years' deprivation of social rights. Five of those years punish educational or promotional activity deemed "contrary to or disruptive of the sacred law of Islam." The rest is for propaganda against the regime. The precision down to the day is the only rigorous thing in the file.

The Baha'i faith was born in 19th-century Persia. Yet unlike Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, its followers are not protected by Article 13 of Iran's constitution. The Islamic Republic tolerates the ancient minorities and hunts the youngest religion Persia ever produced.

Spies, naturally

Amnesty International says the persecution has intensified since the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, through a state campaign falsely casting Baha'is as Israeli spies and collaborators. The accusation leans on geography: the faith's world centre and holy sites are in Haifa and Acre. Why there? Because Persia banished its founder in 1853, and the Ottomans shipped him on to Acre in 1868, eighty years before Israel existed. Tehran, in short, delivered the alleged spy to the alleged enemy itself, with an eight-decade head start.

Prison without doctors or charges

As of September 25, the Baha'i International Community counted 69 Baha'is detained or imprisoned for their beliefs, 35 women and 34 men, plus at least 21 serving sentences under electronic monitoring or on temporary leave. Some are held by the Revolutionary Guards or in undisclosed locations, and abuse is reported. Roya Sabet, held in Shiraz's Adelabad prison with serious neck and back injuries after a fall, saw her blood oxygen drop to 70 percent in August. Her requests for treatment outside prison have not been granted, and her request to serve the rest of her ten-year sentence under electronic monitoring remains unanswered. In Isfahan, Sarir Moghen has spent nearly a month in solitary confinement, denied phone calls, with no charge disclosed.

Justice priced in lifetimes

Getting out costs dearly. Elham Khollas Ardestani, 53, was released on September 19 on bail of two billion tomans, with no charges made public. According to Padideh Sabeti, spokesperson for the Baha'i International Community, judges sometimes set bail worth a hundred years of an average citizen's wages, while discrimination already keeps Baha'is from earning a living. Raids add to the bill: rights monitors report agents carting off gold, electronics, work tools, wedding rings and children's toys. For Paris-based journalist Sajjad Khodakarami, seizing a couple's rings or a child's toys is plain barbarism.

Now open to everyone

The method is spreading. Tehran has ordered the seizure of assets belonging to more than 400 people abroad whom it brands enemy supporters, among them actors, athletes and journalists. At home, café chain manager Sadegh Saedinia got twelve years in prison and the confiscation of everything he owns for posting about protests in Qom. For Khodakarami, a tool first tested on the Baha'is is now being turned on society as a whole: "the economization of repression."

Is it at least profitable? Barely. London-based analyst Arezoo Karimi calls the proceeds insignificant next to Iran's budget deficit, and notes that seized property is often auctioned below market value to the politically connected. The persecuted lose their wedding rings. The well-connected get a bargain.

The Baha'is were Iran's test bench. The results are in, and the product is now available nationwide.