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This article contains graphic references to violence.
From her home in Melbourne, Emilia Nazari anxiously awaits news of her cousin Peyvand Naimi. He has been held in an Iranian prison for months, and his life now hangs in the balance — threatened not just by airstrikes, but by the gallows.
Naimi is a follower of the Baha'i faith — a religious minority subject to persecution in Iran — and was imprisoned for participating in the protest movement that spread across the country in January.
As the world's eyes have shifted to the war in the region, now subject to a tenuous ceasefire, Nazari worries that the international community is being "distracted from what's happening" to prisoners in Iran, like Naimi.
"He was subjected to continuous torture for three days," Nazari tells SBS News.
He was physically beaten, he's been hand and foot bound and tied against the wall for 48 hours, he's been denied food and water, and he's been subjected to mock executions.
"All of this because they're trying to get him to confess to things that he has not done."
Naimi was arrested on charges of inciting unrest during Iran's most recent protests, which were sparked by economic issues, and sent to Kerman prison.
He was permitted a phone call with his family in March, during which he told them he was being pressured to confess to false charges.
Nazari, who is also a Baha'i, says the charges are "false accusations" that he's been involved in the death of three security forces personnel — likely members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Australia considers a sponsor of terrorism.
"It's impossible for him to have committed that offence because at the time of the alleged deaths ... he was already in detention," she says.
"They're going to use it as a justification for a death penalty for Peyvand. That is a great concern of me and my family."
'Denial of livelihood'
The Baha'i community is considered the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran, with an estimated population of 300,000.
According to human rights groups, the community has been systematically persecuted since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, at a level the United Nations says constitutes crimes against humanity.
Awa Momtazian, a spokesperson for the Australian Baha'i community, tells SBS News there is ample evidence to support this.
"For the last 47 years, the Iranian authorities have systematically persecuted the Baha'is by executions, forced disappearances, arbitrary detention and arrests, through the denial of access to higher education, through hate propaganda, they've even desecrated Baha'i graves," she says.
"Baha'is have endured the taking of their lives. They've endured the taking of their properties, the denial of livelihood, and the denial of access to higher education.
"The denial of the right to live in a society free from hate propaganda, from violence, from threats, from harassment."
The 2025 annual report by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) indicates that more than 62 per cent of human rights violations relating to religious minorities in Iran involved violations of Baha'is' rights.
This systemic persecution over decades has been a driving factor behind many Iranian Baha'is choosing to flee the country. Around 15,000 now live in Australia, including Nazari.
The now 47-year-old came to Australia in the 1990s.
"I was about to finish high school, and there was no way of tertiary education for me — that was not allowed for Baha'is," Nazari says.
"Essentially, there was no future for a young person, a young Baha'i.
I was sad. I didn't want to leave Iran … Iran's my country. I loved it, and I continue to love the country, the people, the language … I was forced to leave.
While persecution is not new, reports show that it is increasing.
According to the Baha'i International Community (BIC) — an international non-government organisation representing members of the Baha'i faith — between June and November 2025, there were more than 750 instances of Baha'i persecution throughout Iran, which is three times the amount reported during the same timeframe in 2024.
A 'double threat'
Amid the war in the country, which is currently paused by the fragile ceasefire brokered earlier this week, Nazari is concerned that the crackdown on Baha'is like her cousin will intensify.
"I think Baha'is and minorities, they're under sort of a double threat … Not only from the foreign forces, but from their own government as well," she says.
"There are [other] detainees that have been released since, but Baha'is remain in prison, and there is a recorded history of Iran using Baha'is as scapegoats during the time of conflict … basically, putting all the blame on Baha'is.
"It is a form of distraction … that's what history has shown."
According to BIC, there are multiple Baha'is in prison, including Naimi, who have been subject to various forms of crackdown in recent weeks.
Naimi's other cousin, Borna Naimi, was arrested on 1 March on similar charges and is now also in Kerman prison. In the past month, he has been subjected to at least two mock executions, electric shocks that severely burned his feet and other forms of torture, according to BIC.
The organisation reports that this has affected his three-year-old daughter, who thinks "her father has abandoned her".
Momtazian says the Australian Baha'i community is "very concerned" for the lives of the Naimi cousins.
"We're also concerned about the pattern and the precedent that this sets for the Baha'i community that has been systematically persecuted for the last 47 years and continues to be scapegoated during times of national crisis," she says.
"We've seen a sharp increase in arrests, in imprisonments, in confiscation of property, in ongoing threats, and now escalating violence that really presents a concern about the intensification of the persecution of the Baha'i community in Iran."
Multiple human rights organisations have also reported on a spike in Baha'is' arrests in the country in recent days. On Wednesday, HRANA reported that Angha Siavashi, a Baha'i citizen, was arrested by security forces in Shiraz and taken to an undisclosed location.
The reason for his arrest is still unknown.
Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, says the group is "seeing an intensified crackdown on Baha'i citizens in Iran".
"We saw it after the June conflict with Israel. We've seen a lot of people charged, as alleged spies or conspirators with the state of Israel, and we certainly are seeing that same narrative being pushed again now," she tells SBS News.
Fears of 'mass executions'
Baha'is are not the only group facing an intensified crackdown and potential executions.
Since the war started in Iran on 28 February, at least 14 political prisoners have been executed by Iranian authorities, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based organisation documenting human rights violations in Iran.
Seven of the recently executed prisoners were arrested during the January protests; six were accused of being linked with the anti-regime political group People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran and one was charged with conducting espionage for Israel.
"What we see in Iran is the execution of dissidents, political prisoners, [and] human rights defenders," Gavshon says.
"It's a tool of political repression.
It's really sending the most horrific warning signal to anyone who seeks to be a political dissident or a human rights defender that action will be met with the most final possible punishment, which is execution.
Since 2020, there has been a steady rise in executions in Iran annually.
Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, reported last month that at least 1,639 individuals were executed in 2025, and that there had been at least 100 in January this year.
"Fears of mass executions are certainly mounting given that we know there's been an increase in executions over the last few years and particularly in 2025," Gavshon says.
Regime officials have publicly supported the recent trend, with Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, Iran's head of the judiciary, calling for hangings to be "expedited".
According to Witness Report — an independent group that has been gathering direct and indirect information about those arrested, executed or killed during protests in Iran — 122 people are currently on death row or are "in a very critical situation in their cases".
The group has also reported at least 42 cases of murder or death in custody in 2026 so far.
Kevin Jam, Adelaide-based founder of Witness Report, says if the execution trend of the past two weeks continues, it will be "very horrifying".
"It was a clear message from the Islamic Republic, no matter that they are bombing us, no matter what's happening in the world, we [will continue] to kill people," he tells SBS News.
"I'm sure in the coming days, some more executions will happen — there's no break.
"There is a ceasefire [between Iran and the US] — do a ceasefire with your people as well, stop executing them."
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