Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-05-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he had with the Iranian government on the prosecution of people of the Baha’i faith.

Hugh Robertson

The UK has repeatedly expressed concern at the treatment of the Baha’i community in Iran, including the sentencing of seven Baha’i leaders in Iran to 20 years imprisonment and the regular harassment the community suffers from. We raised the treatment of Baha’is with the UN Special Rapporteur at the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014 and the UK’s non-resident Chargé d’Affaires discussed freedom of religion with the Iranian authorities during his last visit to Iran on 12 March. We will continue to call on the Iranian government to ensure that all its citizens are able to exercise their right to freedom of religion, free from persecution and harassment.