Baha'i Woman Recounts the Terror of Persecution

DALLAS - Back when she was imprisoned with the other 10 women, when she knew that they could all be killed in that Iranian prison because they wouldn't deny their Baha'i faith, Olya Roohizadegan knew she would always keep the promise. If any of us make it out alive, we will tell our story to the whole world, the 10 women had promised one another. Only Roohizadegan would live. The other women were hanged. And, for the past 17 years, she has been telling anyone who would listen about those women.

"I have to tell the world," said Roohizadegan, now a resident of Sydney, Australia, who recently spoke at the Dallas Baha'i Center. "I didn't want what happened to me and others to happen to someone else."

So she travels the world with the help of Baha'i communities, going wherever they will invite her. On this cool January evening, she did what she always does - keeps the memories of her friends fresh as she tells their stories and shares their photographs.

In a country in which nearly the entire population is Muslim, members of the Baha'i faith are not recognized by the Shiite Muslim government of Iran.

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, more than 200 Baha'is have been killed and many others have been persecuted, according to reports. The Baha'i faith is Iran's largest minority with a community of about 350,000 people, according to Baha'i reports.

Many Baha'is have lost their jobs and pensions, and have been deprived of educational opportunities. Baha'i holy places and cemeteries have been vandalized and destroyed. Outcry around the world halted much of the violent persecution within the past 10 years.

That is why Roohizadegan continues her crusade speaking and through her recently re-released book, "Olya's Story: A Survivor's Dramatic Account of the Persecution of Baha'is in Revolutionary Iran" (Oneworld Publications, $16.95). She also doesn't want to forget it herself.

"The memory comes closer and closer to me when I speak of it," she said. "I'm proud of them. The retelling of how much they sacrificed - it's a bitter and sweet memory."

Roohizadegan said guards came to the door of her family's home in Shiraz on Nov. 29, 1982, asked her if it was the Roohizadegan residence, asked if she was Roohizadegan and asked if she was Baha'i. She answered "yes" to all three. They took many of the family's possessions, and they took her to prison.

"They put a gun to my head and, as my 3-year-old son cried, "I want my mommy,' they took me away," she recalled.

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