In response to your question, Dr. Cotler, there has been an increase. In fact there's been such an increase in the defamatory articles about the Bahá'ís and their beliefs and practices that it's hard to remember them all, so I'm going to refer to a report and give you just an example of the kinds of things that have been produced between October and January of this year.
IRNA, which is a state-controlled media organization, has issued an article entitled “Being a Bahá'í from the memoirs of Sobhi”, which is opposed to the faith. In September and October, a new anti-Bahá'í booklet was distributed in a cultural centre in Fardis, in Fars province. It was 30 pages long and it was titled “Imprisoned Ideology: an Introduction to the Perverse Bahá'íst Sect”, and included misinformation about the history of the Bahá'í faith and its alleged involvement with colonialism and Zionism.
In Gilavand, which is a small city near Tehran, there was an article published entitled “Fatwas regarding social interaction and business transactions with Bahá'ís”, citing fatwas prohibiting all interactions with the Bahá'ís.
There were similar booklets distributed in Shiraz and Karaj, and it seems that classes were conducted to study this booklet.
In Karaj, another pamphlet was published on the “dangers of a number of deviant sects”, which called the Bahá'í faith a perverse sect and linked it to pernicious cults such as devil worshippers and warned the citizens of Karaj of the dangerous influence of these cults on their youth.
People in Marv Dasht also were subjected to a pamphlet wherein the Muslim population had allegedly sought guidance about whether Bahá'ís are unclean--is it permissible to shake their hands or share their food--whether they are impure, and is it lawful to be involved in transactions with them? And the pamphlet quoted three ayatollahs as having said that the Bahá'ís are impure infidels and it's not permissible for Muslims to have any association with them, and so on.
There are classes being conducted in Shiraz for 20,000 schoolteachers serving with the ministry of education, called “fabricated religions”, which run down the Bahá'í faith.
I could go on. There are several more pages of this.
What needs to be remembered is that the Bahá'ís have been denied access to the media. They have no means to correct what is being said about them that's false. Their access to public copying facilities is restricted. When their homes are raided, their copiers are taken from them. So they're vilified and have no opportunity to correct what's being said.
What this does is create an atmosphere of prejudice, which allows the Iranian government to continue to persecute the Bahá'ís with impunity. We're grateful for those human rights activists who are starting to speak out, but they're still in the minority.