The Demolition of the House of a Bahai Prisoner

The vacation home of Jamaledin Khanjani, a member of the Bahai Council who is in prison was demolished by security agents in the town of Semnan. According to a member of the family, one day they were told that they had 48 hours to vacate their house and the next day, even though they had obtained a court order to delay the demolition from the supreme court, their house which was situated in the middle of an agricultural field, was bulldozed.

Jamaledin Khanjani is a member of the seven-man Bahai Council in Iran and has been in prison since 2009 without leave benefits. He has been sentenced to 20 years of prison. Foad Khanjani, his grandson and Navid Khanjani, another member of the Khanjani family are also both in prison.

Siavosh Khanjani, another member of the family and Jamaledin’s sister-in-law told Rooz that pressure on their family has been growing since the detention of their uncle. He adds that the pressure is systematic and it began with the arrest of Jamaledin. They said the land on which the demolished house had been built had belonged to them way before Bahaism. He added that the house had been built with the proper construction permits 18 years ago and was the residence of the family. “The land has a deed that goes back to a 100 years but the authorities say the owner is unknown and the deed is not recognized. They also find fault with the house and say that building over extends the permit,” they said.

Khanjani continues, “Even though they gave us 48 hours to vacate, they destroyed 270 square meters of the house and claimed that the construction area exceeded the construction permit. But a court had earlier specifically ruled on this in their favor.” He explained the history of the farm by saying that the family did not receive any money from the government to build the house or develop the land, which had over 40 hectares of fruit trees. “But when the time to fruit picking comes, they block the road to the farm, depriving us of taking the 200 to 300 tons of fruit to the market. A few years ago they destroyed the water reservoir we had built for the farm even though we had obtained all the necessary government permits. We had a 30-year rental agreement for husbandry which they violated and forded us to sell our livestock,” he continued.

Khanjani said, “Even though we had legally owned this land for over 200 years, way before Bahaism had even been around, they set up a security post in the region and began searching all vehicles and frisking individuals. My 85-year old mother had to have a special permit to go around and travel. The Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Intelligence Office of Semnan announced the area to be a military zone and then established a post close to the house that they have demolished. We, our animals and even our plants are not free from invasions. They prevented us from taking our livestock to warner regions, resulting in a number of deaths.”

Talking about the Jamaledin who is in prison, one family member said, “He is over 80 years of age who had a successful trading business before the 1979 revolution. He held a responsibility in managing the affairs of the Bahai community in Iran, which ended in 2008. He has not been allowed to take any leave from prison to visit his family members. He was taken to hospital once for a heart surgery but was taken straight back to prison after that. Foad is the grandson of Jamaledin and he too has been behind bars for over four years. He too has not been given any leave. His sentence is scheduled to end in a few months. His sister Lava too will have her sentence completed soon. Navid, my brother’s son filed a formal complained because he had been denied the permission to continue his higher education, but that resulted in them creating a case against him and sentencing him to 12 years of prison. He was taken to hospital two weeks ago because of severe stomach pain and underwent surgery.  He is young but has been taken to the hospital again.”

Siavosh Khanjani said, “Many of our family members are Muslims and we live together, participate in each other’s ceremonies. But it is the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Intelligence Agency’s branch that is harsh on us. We really do not know for how long they intend to continue this.”