Mr. Brendan McNamara:

We welcome these events and are delighted for those people and their families. We would like to hope this is the prelude to some change. Unfortunately, what we have seen since the election of Mr. Rouhani is no real change for the Baha'is. In my opening statement I pointed to the murder of Mr. Ataollah Rezvani in Bandar Abbas. There has not even been an investigation into the details surrounding his abduction and murder. The fatwa released by the Iranian Supreme Leader which called for the shunning and marginalisation of Baha'is came at about the same time.

It remains to be seen but we would hope there will be change. However, the 112 Baha'is in prison in Iran have not yet been released. The seven former leaders of the Baha'i community are five years into a 20-year sentence, the longest that any prisoner of conscience has received there. In education, Baha'i students have again this year been denied access to university. We do not see many changes yet. It will take some time to see if this is actually a sea change. Mr. Rouhani and his regime should be judged over a period.

When Mohammad Khatami, a supposed moderate, was President of Iran from 1997 to 2005, there were many expressions for change just like we have heard over the past several months but nothing really did change. We would advise a little caution.