On 18 June 1983 the authorities in Shiraz, Iran, hanged ten women aged between 17 and 57 and including a mother and daughter. Their crime? They were members of the Bahá’í Faith, Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, and active in such activities as running children’s classes for their community. They were subjected to pressure to renounce their religion and when they refused they were sentenced to death. This was part of an ongoing campaign of persecution by the authorities in Iran to gradually stamp out the Bahá’í community there, a campaign that still continues, albeit less intensely.
This is the story of Nodrat Ghufanie Yaldaie, age 46 when she was killed. Her son had been execu...