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March 19, 2021 Land confiscation and mass displacement of Bahá'ís in Iran In late 2020, two Iranian courts issued orders that declared ownership of lands by 27 Bahá'ís in the village of Ivel (pronounced ee-VELL), to be illegal due to their religious beliefs. Recent rulings decided that all properties belonging to Bahá'ís in the village of Ivel—some of which they have owned since the mid-19th century—be confiscated on the basis that Bahá'ís have “a perverse ideology” and therefore have no “legitimacy in their ownership” of any property. These decisions followed decades of persecution against the Bahá'ís of Ivel, hard-working and low-income agricultural workers with no other assets and means of earning a livelihood but their homes and agricultural land. The land seizures took place within the context of recent escalating raids on Bahá'í-owned homes and businesses in Iran. On 22 November 2020, over a hundred government agents raided the shops and homes of dozens of Bahá'ís in seven cities, and demanded that they hand over their property deeds. From its inception, the Bahá'í community promoted social, economic and cultural developments in Ivel. In addition to the role they played in the area's agriculture, they established a school at which local children, regardless of their religion, were educated. The Bahá'ís also built a bath house for use by the villagers, which included modifications to the local reservoir and the introduction of modernizations to improve the facility's levels of hygiene. In 2010, homes belonging to some 50 Bahá'í families were demolished and burned…reports indicated that 90 percent of Bahá'í-owned homes had been demolished. The intention of this campaign has been for the Bahá'ís to never return to Ivel and to take over their lands. Despite the constructive role Bahá'ís have played in their community, they have experienced a series of persecutions largely characterized by mass expulsion and displacement, and the demolition, bulldozing and confiscation of their properties. |
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