Dear Baha'i friends,
We have been instructed by the Universal House of Justice to announce the sorrowful news that since our last report of 11 March 1982, two more steadfast and devoted supporters of the Greatest Name in Iran, Mr Ihsanu'llah Khayyami of Urumiyyih and Mr 'Azizu'llah Gulshani of Mashhad, have joined the ranks of the martyrs of His Cause. After a few months of imprisonment and intense but unsuccessful pressure to recant his Faith, Mr Khayyami, a staunch believer of humble means, was executed on 12 April 1982. Mr Gulshani, a prominent Baha'i of Khurasan province who was imprisoned for many months, was executed on 29 April. The following developments are also shared with you.
The friends in the village of Saysan, in one of the outlying districts of Tabriz, are under extreme pressure by a mulla of the neighbouring town of Bustanabad, and have been given a month to decide whether they will convert to Islam or face grave consequences. The members of the Baha'i community in this village, which consists of several generations of Baha'is, have remained steadfast and approached the religious authorities in Qum who have recommended to the Imam-Jum'ih of Tabriz that he intervene and try to relieve the Baha'is from such harassment.
All the Baha'is of Hisar in Khurasan have been forced to leave their homes and had to flee to Mashhad.
Although a few believers have been released from prison during the recent period of amnesty, many have been arrested and imprisoned, including nine active Baha'is in Qazvin and its surrounding areas, seven in Shiraz, five in Tihran, and seven in Zanjan.
The Universal House of Justice urges the friends throughout the world to continue their prayers for the Baha'is in Iran and to intensify their services in the path of the Blessed Beauty to compensate for the plight of our oppressed brethren in the Cradle of the Faith. ...
With loving Baha'i greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
(‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)
