Marking 18 December as the International Day against Colonialism, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution that has condemned and confirmed the explicit cumulative impact of the Iranian government’s campaign against the Bahá’í community since 1979. The resolution was in direct response to the ongoing persecution of Bahá’ís in Iran (the birthplace of Bahá’ism), and the third week of December 2025 presents a more critical setting, which has been evolving into a more repressive state apparatus. The repression has transitioned from occasional harassment to what international bodies are now classifying as the abuse of human rights. Sociologically, cumulative impacts refer to the erosion of international recognition, including the denial of livelihoods, education, and the right to burial; these are no longer viewed as isolated incidents but as a carefully planned, longitudinal effort to erase the community as a viable social entity. Following the arrest of Bahá’í citizen Naveed Tashakor on 15 December for merely teaching and educating, his methods were immediately scrutinised and labelled as “propaganda through educational activity”. The state's radical attitude has enabled the “weaponising” of judicial mechanisms to achieve the ends of suppression.
A flexible way to justify the actions of the government is to change laws, and the recent escalation against Bahá’ís is due to Articles 499 and 500 of the Iranian Islamic Penal Code. These laws were amended in 2021 and reinterpreted merely to criminalise small religious structures deviant from mainstream Islam. The absurdity of the government is displayed in how Bahá’í women have become scapegoats for these laws and received sentences simply for teaching and organising art, English, and music classes for their children. The limited understanding of “propaganda” also includes yoga or nature excursions. To maintain a strict theocracy, these activities were labelled as “deviant promotional and educational activities contrary to Islamic law.”
The carefully curated onslaught of Bahá’ís has taken a gendered dimension; two-thirds of Bahá’í political prisoners are women, according to the latest data from Human Rights Watch. Analysed within the post-2022 “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (Woman, Life, Freedom) landscape, this targeting represents a strategic attempt to disrupt social reproduction. Since the faith emphasises gender equality and women are the drivers of social reproduction, they are systematically repressed and stripped away from their families by the state, thereby interrupting the transmission of cultural and religious values.
Deconstructing the second aspect of weaponisation, the government has introduced Article 49 of the Constitution to curb illicit wealth. However, this article is now widely used to survey the wealth of Bahá’ís. The government's text-message approach, reported this week, has become a popular method for seizing the assets of Bahá’ís. Furthermore, these assets are channelled to the “Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam” (Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order), which controls assets throughout Iran. This has left the Bahá’í minority economically vulnerable.
Thirdly, geopolitical shifts and the military confrontation of the 12-Day Israel-Iran war have escalated the phenomenon of “sudden weaponisation.” Being a minority and an offshoot of Islam, Bahá’ís are a lucrative target to be labelled as Zionist spies. The rationale behind this whole narrative is the location of the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa. Since a community cannot live in isolation, the minority’s resilience has enabled it to find alternatives rather than engage in conflict with the state or government.
December 2025 unveils a powerful method for the systematic erasure of the Bahá’í minority community. Iran has outgrown traditional methods of indulging in violence; instead, it has more refined methods to use the laws at its disposal. The weaponisation of the judiciary is pulverising the Bahá’ís mainly in two ways: through Article 49 of the Constitution, enabling the seizure of assets, and Articles 499 and 500 of the Iranian Penal Code, curbing social activities by criminalising them.
The latest UN Resolution may not be just a diplomatic move; it is a reminder that if the judicial erasure of the Bahá’ís in Iran is not addressed, it might become a rigid blueprint for many authoritarian regimes to use at their disposal to repress minorities. Moreover, a shift from the Rule of Law to Rule by Law indicates that the deteriorating situation of the Bahá’ís is a canary in the coal mine.
The author is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.