The Brutal Slashing to Death of Dr Berjis

Abstract

A wealth of literature has attested to the recrudescence of state- and clerical- sponsored religious intolerance and persecution of the Iranian Baha’i religious minority since the more than three decades of the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979. Persecution during the Pahlavi regime is more sparsely documented. The following is an annotated translation of an article by Nasser Mohajer of the grim circumstances surrounding the brutal killing of Baha’i physician Sulayman Berjis (1897–1950) by a gang of religious fanatics and the uncivil indifference and abortive trial of justice that followed.