WHITTLESEA and Kinglake’s Baha’i community has sent thanks to the Australian Government for speaking out against the detention of religious prisoners in Iran.

Local resident Behjat Dianati has applauded the parliament, which called for the immediate release of Baha’i leaders in the Middle Eastern country, including one of Mrs Dianati’s relatives.

The private members motion, put by Leichhardt MP James Turnour in the Lower House on 29 May, received bipartisan support in calling on Iran to “release the seven Baha’i detainees without delay”.

The motion also noted with “serious concern” that the seven Baha’i community members in Iran had been charged with “spying, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, and that these charges could attract the death penalty”. It further noted that the prisoners had “not been given any access to legal representation and have not been subject to due legal process”.

The motion called on Iran to “respect rights to freedom of religion and the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression and association, in accordance with international human rights conventions.”

Mrs Dianati, whose cousin Jamaloddin Khanjani is one of the Baha’i leaders detained now for more than a year, said she and other families held grave fears for the wellbeing of their loved ones.

“He is unjustly imprisoned without having access to any lawyers, and I hope that he and the other six Baha’is arrested at the same time, including two women in the group, get fair treatment,” she said.

“We have no access to them and no contact with them. Therefore we are very worried about their health and condition.”

Mr Khanjani, 75, was arrested in May last year.

The once-successful factory owner lost his business in Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution as a direct result of his belief in the Baha’i faith and spent most of the 1980s on the run from the Iranian Government.

During that time he was a member of the so-called “third” National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Iran – a group that in 1984 saw four of its nine members executed by the government.

Mrs Dianati is hoping that the Australian Government’s stance on the plight of Mr Khanjani and his colleagues will see them released and returned to their families.