world, as evidenced by the violent
recrudescence of the persecution afflicting intermittently, for over a
century, its members residing in Baha'u'llah's native land.

Following the seizure and the destruction of the dome of the community's
national administrative headquarters, the occupation of similar
institutions in all provinces, the government declaration to the Majlis
outlawing the Faith and a virulent press and radio campaign, distorting
its history, calumniating its Founders, misrepresenting its tenets and
obscuring its aims and purposes, a series of atrocities has been
perpetrated in rapid succession throughout the length and breadth of the
land against members of a sorely-tried community.

The House of the Bab, the foremost Shrine in Iran, has been twice
desecrated and severely damaged; Baha'u'llah's ancestral Home at Takur
occupied; the house of the Bab's uncle razed to the ground; shops, farms
plundered; crops burned, livestock destroyed; bodies disinterred in the
cemeteries and mutilated; private houses broken into, damaged and looted;
adults execrated and beaten; young women abducted and forced to marry
Muslims; children mocked, reviled, beaten and expelled from the schools;
boycott by butchers and bakers imposed; fifteen-year-old girl raped;
eleven-month-old baby trampled underfoot; and pressure brought to bear
upon believers to recant their Faith.

More recently a family of seven, the oldest eighty, the youngest nineteen,
residing in Hurmuzak of the Province of Yazd, were set upon by a mob two
thousand strong, accompanied by music of drums and trumpets, which hacked
them to pieces with spades and axes. Meanwhile an official circular has
been issued by the Prime Minister, addressed to Government Departments
ordering the expulsion of all Baha'i employes refusing to recant.

This highly distressing situation threatens to worsen during Muharram and
Safar.

Reacting to these barbarous acts, over a thousand groups and local
Assemblies of the Baha'i world appealed telegraphically to the
authorities, and all National Assemblies addressed written communications
to the _Sh_ah, the government and parliament, pleading for justice and
protection.

Finding written pleas unanswered, an appeal has been lodged with United
Nations by representatives of the International Baha'i Community at
Geneva. Copies of the appeal were delivered to representatives of member
nations of the Social and Economic Council, the Directo