{"id":16906,"date":"2025-08-15T16:46:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T22:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/qatar-sentences-countrys-bahai-leader-to-5-years-for-social-media-posts\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:38:35","slug":"qatar-sentences-countrys-bahai-leader-to-5-years-for-social-media-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/qatar-sentences-countrys-bahai-leader-to-5-years-for-social-media-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar sentences country\u2019s Baha\u2019i leader to 5 years for social media posts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Remy
Remy Rowhani, the head of the National Spiritual Assembly that governs Baha'i affairs in Qatar. (Family photo via AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The leader of the small Baha\u2019i community in Qatar was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for social media posts that allegedly \u201ccast doubt on the foundations of the Islamic religion,\u201d according to court documents obtained by an international Baha\u2019i organization monitoring the case.<\/p>\n

A three-judge panel of Qatar\u2019s Supreme Judiciary Council issued the verdict against Remy Rowhani, 71, who has been detained since April, according to documents provided to The Associated Press by the Baha\u2019i International Community office in Geneva, Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The judges rejected a defense request for leniency on grounds that Rowhani suffered from a heart condition, according to the documentation.<\/p>\n

Saba Haddad, the Geneva office\u2019s representative to the United Nations, depicted the verdict as \u201ca serious breach and grave violation of the right to freedom of religion or belief and an attack on Remy Rowhani and the Baha\u2019i community in Qatar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haddad\u2019s office, in a post on X, called on the international community \u201cto urge Qatar\u2019s government to uphold international law and ensure Mr. Rowhani\u2019s immediate release.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queried by The Associated Press about the verdict, Qatar\u2019s International Media Office issued this response:<\/p>\n

\u201cQatar\u2019s Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of worship for all. This must be exercised in accordance with the law and must not threaten or violate public stability and security. Qatar\u2019s legal system ensures that all parties in any case are granted due process and provided legal representation, with no discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or any other status.\u201d<\/p>\n

The verdict came just two weeks after a group of U.N. human rights experts expressed \u201cserious concern\u201d about Rowhani\u2019s arrest and detention, which they depicted as \u201cpart of a broader and disturbing pattern of disparate treatment of the Baha\u2019i minority in Qatar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mere existence of Baha\u2019is in Qatar and their innocuous presence on X cannot be criminalized under international law,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Rowhani \u2013 former head of Qatar\u2019s Chamber of Commerce \u2013 had been arrested once previously, accused of offenses such as routine fundraising related to his leadership of Qatar\u2019s Baha\u2019i National Assembly.<\/p>\n

The latest charges, filed in April, involve the Baha\u2019i community\u2019s X and Instagram accounts, which contain posts about Qatari holidays and Baha\u2019i writings.<\/p>\n

According to the documentation provided by the Geneva office, Qatari prosecutors alleged that these accounts \u201cpromoted the ideas and beliefs of a religious sect that raises doubt about the foundations and teachings of the Islamic religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowhani\u2019s daughter, Noora Rowhani, who lives in Australia, said via email that the five-year verdict is \u201cso unfortunate and so shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy eye condition is deteriorating and in five years, even if I meet, him I will most probably not be able to see him anymore,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The Baha\u2019i faith \u2013 a small but global religion with an interfaith credo \u2013 fits comfortably into the religious spectrum of most countries but in several Middle East nations, Baha\u2019i followers face repression that is drawing criticism from rights groups.<\/p>\n

The abuse is most evident in Iran, which bans the faith and has been widely accused of persecuting Baha\u2019i followers, human rights advocates say. They also report systemic discrimination in Yemen, Qatar and Egypt.<\/p>\n

Advocates say Iran\u2019s government has pressed for repression of the Baha\u2019i followers in countries where it holds influence, such as Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels control the northern half of the country, and Qatar, which shares with Iran the world\u2019s largest natural gas field.<\/p>\n

The Baha\u2019i faith was founded in the 1860s by Baha\u2019u\u2019llah, a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by his followers. Muslims consider the Prophet Muhammad the highest and last prophet.<\/p>\n

From the Baha\u2019i faith\u2019s earliest days, Shiite Muslim clerics have denounced its followers as apostates. That repression continued after Iran\u2019s 1979 Islamic Revolution, when many Baha\u2019i followers were executed or went missing.<\/p>\n

There are less than 8 million Baha\u2019i believers worldwide, with the largest number in India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

allegedly \u2018cast doubt on the foundations of the Islamic religion\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20458,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16906\/revisions\/20458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16906"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}