A house visit by a daughter of a prominent ayatollah to a female leader of the persecuted Bahai religious minority touched off a debate this week in Iran about the harsh treatment of a group deemed pagans and impure by the country’s dominant clerics.
The issue was raised last week when the Iranian news media reported that Faezeh Hashemi, 54, a daughter of the former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had sat down for tea with Fariba Kamalabadi, 52, a Bahai leader.
Ms. Kamalabadi, was on temporary leave from a 20-year prison sentence imposed on her and six other Bahai leaders for spying for Israel. The United States State Department has condemned their imprisonment and called for their release along with other “prisoners of conscience.”
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