Mumbai: Baha'is Community Outraged Over Alleged Forcible Detention Of Senior Official At Cairo Airport

Baha'is in Mumbai have joined the international community to express outrage about the alleged forcible detention and detention of a senior Bahai official, Omid Seioshanseian at Cairo international airport on Thursday.

Seioshanseian's devices were allegedly confiscated and he was unable to contact relatives or colleagues. According to a statement by the community, Seioshanseian was handcuffed, blindfolded, physically mistreated, interrogated and threatened, by agents of the State Security Investigations Service Al-Amn Al-Qawmi, and then filmed under duress to state that he was not mistreated.

The international Baha'i community said it is raising the incident at the highest levels worldwide, noting Egypt’s legal obligations to the @UN Committee Against Torture.

The community said that the incident raises concern about the intensification of the persecution of Egypt’s Baha'i community by authorities. The Egyptian Baha'i community has lived through bans on their religious activities and institutionalised discrimination. They (the authorities) are denying the Baha'i community its fundamental rights to the freedom of religion and the practice of their peaceful faith, and hindering their right to live normal, dignified lives with family, and to earn livelihoods, the statement from the community said.

Ahead of Egypt’s next Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations, a human rights process designed to offer the Egyptian government recommendations to improve the human rights of all its citizens, the international Baha'i community called on UN member-states to urge Egypt to end its discrimination and persecution of the Baha'i community. We encourage member-states of the UN Human Rights Council to make five specific recommendations to Egypt at the January 2025 UPR session which will assist in alleviating the suffering of the Egyptian Baha’is, the statement added.