Written by David Craig
According to court documents obtained by an international Baha’i organization keeping an eye on the issue, the leader of the small Baha’i community in Qatar was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison for social media statements that purportedly raised questions about the fundamentals of Islam.
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According to records sent to The Associated Press by the Baha’i International Community headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Remy Rowhani, 71, has been in custody since April. The verdict was rendered by a three-judge panel of Qatar’s Supreme Judiciary Council.
According to the documents, the judges denied a defense motion for leniency on the grounds that Rowhani had a cardiac issue.
The Geneva office’s UN representative, Saba Haddad, described the decision as an assault on Remy Rowhani and the Baha’i community in Qatar as well as a major infringement of the right to freedom of religion or belief.
In a post on X, Haddad’s office urged the whole community to pressure Qatar’s authorities to respect international law and guarantee Mr. Rowhani’s prompt release.
AP’s inquiries regarding the case were not immediately answered by Qatar’s International Media Office.
Two weeks before to the verdict, a panel of U.N. human rights experts voiced grave concerns about Rowhani’s arrest and imprisonment, describing it as a part of a larger and unsettling pattern of Qatar’s Baha’i minority being treated differently.
According to them, the Baha’s harmless presence on X cannot be illegal under international law because they are in Qatar.
The former chairman of Qatar’s Chamber of Commerce, Rowhani, has previously been jailed on suspicion of crimes like regular fundraising connected to his role as head of the country’s Baha’i National Assembly.
The X and Instagram pages of the Baha’i community, which post about Qatari holidays and Baha’i works, are the subject of the most recent charges, which were filed in April.
Qatari prosecutors said that these accounts propagated the views and doctrines of a religious cult that cast doubt on the principles and teachings of Islam, according to the Geneva office’s evidence.
Noora Rowhani, Rowhani’s daughter who resides in Australia, expressed via email how upsetting and regrettable the five-year verdict is.
“Even if I meet him, I probably won’t be able to see him anymore in five years because my eye condition is getting worse,” she continued.
Although the Baha’i faith is a small but worldwide religion with an interfaith tenet, its adherents experience repression in a number of Middle Eastern countries that has drawn criticism from human rights organizations.
Human rights campaigners claim that Iran, which outlaws the religion and has been widely accused of harassing Baha’i adherents, is where the abuse is most noticeable. Additionally, they document systematic prejudice in Egypt, Qatar, and Yemen.
Proponents claim that in nations where it has sway, like Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels rule the northern half of the country, and Qatar, which shares the world’s largest natural gas field with Iran, the Iranian government has pushed for the suppression of Baha’i adherents.
A Persian aristocrat who was regarded as a prophet by his adherents, Baha u llah, established the Baha’i faith in the 1860s. The Prophet Muhammad is regarded by Muslims as the final and greatest prophet.
Since the beginning of the Baha’i faith, Shiite Muslim authorities have condemned its adherents as heretics. Following Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, when many Baha’i adherents were killed or disappeared, this persecution persisted.
Less than 8 million Baha’i adherents exist globally, with India housing the majority.
Lilly Endowment Inc. provides financing for the Associated Press’s partnership with The Conversation US, which supports its coverage of religion. This content is entirely the responsibility of the AP.
