HRANA News Agency –Sheida Rouhani, a Baha’i resident of Tehran, was arrested by security forces on Tuesday, May 27, at her home and taken to an undisclosed location.
According to HRANA, the news agency of Human Rights Activists in Iran, Rouhani was arrested despite ongoing efforts by her family to obtain information about her situation. As of this report, her whereabouts remain unknown, raising serious concerns among her relatives.
A source close to the family told HRANA that around 5 p.m., ten security agents arrived at Rouhani’s apartment building. After convincing a neighbor to open the door, they entered her unit with a search warrant. The agents searched the home extensively and seized three laptops, two mobile phones, three tablets, three property deeds, a vehicle registration, academic documents, as well as books and photographs related to the Baha’i faith. Gold and a sum of U.S. dollars were also confiscated.
Before leaving, the agents told Rouhani she needed to accompany them to speak with a prosecutor. She was then taken into custody.
Rouhani is married and the mother of one child.
Over the past decade, the Iranian Bahá’í community has been disproportionately targeted by Iran’s security forces and judiciary—more than any other minority group. In the past three years, an average of 72 percent of the reports on religious rights violations collected by HRANA have documented the Iranian regime’s repression of the Bahá’í community.