Inside Iran's Systematic Persecution of AROPL

In Iran, believing in divine appointment over clerical rule can cost you everything. Members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light face brutal beatings, skull-cracking torture, sexual assault, and fatwas declaring their blood 'halal.' Children jailed in Evin Prison. Families too terrified to speak. This is state-sponsored persecution.

Members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light have faced systemic and brutal persecution in Iran, where the government and religious scholars consider the movement heretical and a significant threat to their authority. The Iranian state has produced and televised propaganda documentaries and programs specifically designed to slander the religion, using images of the believers without permission to frame them as heretics and apostates. Religious scholars in the country have gone as far as issuing fatwas declaring the blood of the believers to be "halal," effectively legitimizing their murder.

The physical persecution has been severe, with reports of believers being brutally beaten, tortured, and sexually assaulted by security forces. In one instance, an undercover police officer used a stick to crack open the skull of a member who was sharing his faith. A group of 15 believers, including minors and young children, were arrested and detained in the notorious Evin Prison, where they were subjected to harsh conditions and pressured to give false confessions against the faith.

Currently, there are reports of believers in Iran who have gone missing, with their families being too terrified by the authorities to provide any information regarding their whereabouts.

The motivation for this crackdown stems from the Iranian regime's adherence to the doctrine of Wilayat Al-Faqih, which claims that scholars are the legitimate representatives of the Mahdi. Because the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light teaches that only God can appoint a ruler and that the current Iranian leadership is illegitimate, the state views the movement as an "enemy of the state". Scholars in Iran have even stated publicly that if the true Imam Mahdi were to emerge and oppose the Iranian government, he should be fought and killed. Consequently, the practice of the religion is officially banned in Iran, and hundreds of its members have been forced to flee the country to seek asylum elsewhere.

https://www.en-hrana.org/tag/ahmadi-religion-of-peace-and-light/