Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Iranian counterpart on reports of members of the Baha’i community being imprisoned or banned from public sector employment where they have academic qualifications issued by the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education; and if he will make a statement.

We remain deeply concerned by the continuing systematic discrimination, harassment and targeting of the Baha'i community in Iran and follow this situation closely. The Government continues to raise our concerns on this and other persistent human rights violations with Iran.

On 26 October, we made a statement on this matter, during the Interactive Dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. We called on Iran to ensure members of all religious and ethnic groups are treated equally before the law and allowed to participate fully in society.