Yes, sir, particularly when it comes to the Baha’i community. The Baha’i community is the most persecuted religious minority in Iran ever since the revolution of 1979.
The religious leadership of the Islamic republic believes that the Baha’i faith is a direct challenge, a theological challenge, to Shia Islam. They have the support of many members of the Shia clergy and even some parts of devout Iranians. This is why the Baha’i community has been suffering most.
However, 35 years after the revolution there are many Iranians who are questioning the right of the Shia clergy to rule Iran. After all, they promised the Iranian public justice in this world and salvation in the next. Of course, nobody has returned from the next world to tell us if there was salvation for them, but if there is one thing that the Iranian public knows very well, it is that there is no justice for them.
There is particular injustice for those members of Iranian society who do not belong to the Shia faith. There are particular hardships for members of the Sunni community, and again, within the Sunni community, the Sunni Arab community is persecuted because it is accused of receiving funds and political support from Iran's regional rivals. In some cases that may even be true, but there is absolutely no excuse for discriminating against members of those communities.
Among the religious communities there is one success story, and that has nothing to do with the government of Iran, and that is Iran's Jewish minority. The Jewish minority is not persecuted because of its faith. You cannot credit the government of the Islamic republic for that. Iran hosts the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East after Israel, and that is not because of the government. That is because of the generally tolerant nature of Iranian society. It has nothing to do with the government.
Other violations of human rights are usually directed against human rights activists, against lawyers who defend victims of human rights abuses in Iranian courts, against unions, particularly student unions and labour unions. In other words, the government on the one hand tries to dominate the union structure and infiltrates them by agents of various intelligence services, but at the same time also wants to crush them to the degree that is at all possible.
These groups are all overrepresented statistically among the list of political prisoners. I think a very good list of that is Dr. Shaheed's report, which was published recently.