(RNS) — A month ago, Iran’s Parliament and Guardian Council approved sweeping legislation dramatically expanding the range of punishable actions and the use of the death penalty. Ostensibly framed as a defense measure in a volatile landscape following the 12-day war with Israel in June, the law in fact marks one of the gravest assaults on religious freedom in Iran’s modern history.

Its timing, four months after the two countries traded missile bombardments, reveals its true purpose: to consolidate power at home through fear, scapegoating and repression of the country’s most oppressed groups, especially Iran’s Baha’i community.

Baha’i, a rapidly growing global religion, was founded in the 1860s and is dedicated to toleration of other faiths, though it is severely repressed in several countries in the Middle East. Nowhere are Baha’is less tolerated than in Iran, where they make up a large minority, with about 300,000 adherents, according to 2020 figures. 

The Oct. 1 bill, formally titled the “Intensification of Punishment for Espionage and Cooperation with the Zionist Regime and Hostile States Against National Security and Interests,” grants Iranian prosecutors sweeping authority to impose death sentences for vaguely defined offenses. Under its provisions, even routine civic activity or the sharing of digital content may be construed as “cooperation with hostile governments” if deemed by the regime to benefit Israel, the United States or unnamed “Zionist agents.”

This deliberate vagueness gives authorities near-limitless power to silence dissent, particularly among groups long branded as “outsiders” in the Islamic Republic’s ideological narrative.

Article 2 of the new law declares that “any direct or indirect assistance which results in the legitimation of the Zionist regime” is punishable by death or lengthy imprisonment. For Tehran’s clerical establishment, the community’s spiritual connection to the Baha’i World Centre in Haifa, Israel, provides a convenient pretext for oppression. This tie can be cynically manipulated to suggest that the institution’s mere existence legitimizes Israel — exposing Iranian Baha’is to severe reprisals for their faith alone.

Human-rights monitors have documented a sharp escalation of anti-Baha’i propaganda and arrests since the summer. In July, while Iranian state media celebrated what it called a “divine victory” over Israel, human rights activists in Iran reported that fully 72% of all documented violations of religious freedom in the previous three years involved Baha’is.

After the 12-day war began, at least 20 Baha’is were detained within a two-week period, an enormous spike relative to arrests in the general population. Their “crimes”? A report by the Ministry of Intelligence alleged that there was evidence of communications between the Baha’is and Israel during the war, a vague accusation lacking evidence but damaging enough to influence future court proceedings. 

Equally disturbing are the procedural mechanisms embedded in the statute. Article 8 sets a five-day limit for investigation and trial in capital cases, eviscerating any notion of due process. Appeals to higher courts are barred in most circumstances. Article 9 authorizes prosecutions even for acts committed before the law’s enactment, a blatant violation of international norms prohibiting ex post facto punishment.

Together, these provisions ensure that once accused, a defendant has virtually no path to defense or review. For Baha’is, already denied access to lawyers, universities and government employment, such a system forecloses all possibility of justice.

The Iranian government has long relied on scapegoating to manage domestic instability. Following its costly confrontation with Israel — a war that decimated sections of its nuclear infrastructure and weakened regional allies Hezbollah and Hamas — the regime is under immense internal pressure. With inflation soaring and public discontent rising, officials have sought refuge in the politics of blame. Religious minorities, such as Sunni Kurds, Baluchis and Christian converts, are likely to be accused of “undermining national security.”

State television amplifies these claims, and online troll networks recycle conspiracy theories linking minority communities to foreign plots. The Baha’is, whose faith preaches nonviolence and obedience to lawful government, become an all-too-convenient target. By portraying domestic repression of the Baha’is as a patriotic necessity in an era of external threat, they hope to reassert ideological unity after a humiliating military episode.

Yet history suggests that repression born of weakness breeds only further decay. Each wave of persecution against minorities, from the post-revolutionary purges of the 1980s to the economic strangulation campaigns of the 2000s, has coincided with moments of crisis in the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy. The Oct. 1 law continues that pattern, signaling not strength but desperation.

Western governments, distracted by global conflicts and fatigued by Iran’s familiar defiance, may be tempted to dismiss this as another round of internal repression. That would be a grave mistake. The statute’s scope and severity mark a qualitative shift. It does not merely penalize dissent; it institutionalizes collective punishment against entire communities. The Baha’is may again serve as the “canary in the coal mine,” warning of a broader campaign that could soon engulf other minorities.

Diplomatic pressure remains possible — and necessary. The European Union, Canada and the United States have previously imposed targeted sanctions on Iranian officials implicated in religious persecution. Those mechanisms should be reactivated immediately, with particular scrutiny on judges and prosecutors empowered by the new law.

At the same time, United Nations special rapporteurs must be granted access to investigate violations arising from its enforcement. Documentation, public exposure and sustained advocacy remain the most effective tools to deter a regime that thrives in the shadows.

Religious persecution in Iran is neither new nor inevitable. It endures because the world’s outrage fades faster than the victims’ suffering. As the ink dries on this latest “security” decree, the global community must decide whether it will again look away or whether it will affirm, clearly and unequivocally, that no government may invoke national security to criminalize faith. The fate of Baha’is in Iran now tests the conscience of all who claim to defend religious freedom. 

(Kristina Arriaga, a former vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is a founding partner of Intrinsic Consulting. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)