Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to this motion condemning the ongoing abuse of human rights in Iran, and I thank the member for Cook for bringing it before the House. Although the motion refers to a number of religious and ethnic groups within Iran, I particularly wanted to participate in this debate because I know that it is important to the Baha’i community in my electorate that these matters are brought to the attention of the Australian government. Representatives and supporters of the Baha’i community in Central Queensland have been to see me twice this year to express their concerns about the treatment of their fellow Baha’is in Iran. At least one local family that I spoke to has its own experience of the discrimination and persecution that Baha’is suffer in that country.

In part, the motion calls on Iran to recognise the legitimate rights of minorities involving their access to university training and enrolment in professions. In Iran today those rights are seriously proscribed for a number of minority groups and explicitly prohibited for Baha’is. For example, a 2001 Ministry of Justice report stated that Baha’is must be excluded or expelled from universities once their identity becomes known. Furthermore, Baha’is are banned from government employment.

This was the experience of the Rockhampton family that I referred to earlier. The mother of the family graduated in law from Tehran University and had embarked on a career in a government department prior to the revolution of 1979 that brought the Islamic government to power. Along with thousands of other Baha’is at that time she was sacked from her job, and life in Iran became increasingly difficult. She has described for me, and I have tried to imagine, a life without basic rights and with absolutely no protection for either your person or your property from the law. There is no freedom for Baha’is to practise their faith in Iran. Baha’is can have their property confiscated and they are subject to arbitrary harassment and arrest. According to the US State Department’s International religious freedom report of 2005, Iranian law allows for Baha’is to be killed with impunity. In those circumstances the family could see no future for themselves in Iran and in the mid-1980s they made the difficult and dangerous decision to flee the country. By any measure they have made a success of their life in Australia but, as they have explained to me, no-one chooses to leave their home and, of course, their fears for friends and family still in Iran are ever present. Those fears for the safety and welfare of Baha’is in Iran are real and well-founded. They are fears shared by governments and human rights agencies around the world.

The persecution of and denial of rights to the Baha’i community in Iran have been going on since the 1979 revolution. There are indications, however, that we are seeing a renewed effort by the government to victimise the group. In March this year the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief drew attention to a confidential letter addressed to the Ministry of Information, the revolutionary guard and the police force calling on them to identify persons who adhere to the Baha’i faith and to monitor their activities. This is no doubt an ominous development for the 300,000 or so Baha’is living in Iran. The special rapporteur voiced her concern that the information gained as a result of such monitoring will be used as a basis for the increased persecution of and discrimination against members of the Baha’i community. As we have heard from other speakers in this debate, this is just one of many such abuses of human rights by the government of Iran.

As members of the House might be aware, it was only a couple of weeks ago that Australian viewers of the Four Corners program were appalled by the shocking story of Atefah Sahaaleh, the 16-year-old girl who was executed for a so-called crime against chastity. This teenage girl, a victim of abuse and rape, was sentenced to death even though, as a signatory to the International Convention on Human Rights, Iran cannot execute a person under the age of 18. As the member for Reid pointed out in his contribution, that is not really the point anyway. The technicality about her age is only one of the shocking aspects of this case. By supporting this motion the parliament joins with the international community in condemning these breaches of human rights in Iran. The Australian government must continue to strongly support international efforts to eliminate discrimination and human rights abuses in all their forms within that country.

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