April 06, 2004, 8:53 a.m.
Let My People Go
Iranian Jews held against their will.

By Pooya Dayanim

Last night Jews all around the world sat around their Seder tables to celebrate Passover, which marks the Jews' liberation from their bondage in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. It is thus timely to tell another story of innocents held captive, one that has lasted far too long, and that now must come to an end: the story of the eleven Iranian Jewish hostages in Iran.

In the years since Islamic extremists took over Iran (with the blessing of the Carter administration), the number of Jews there has dropped from 100,000 to 20,000. Nowadays, Iranian Jews are accused daily of being spies for Israel and the United States (as in the case of the "Shiraz 13" in 1999). Government-controlled newspapers point fingers at Jews, claiming they use the blood of young Muslim children to make their Passover matzos. Jews are scapegoated for poisoning the water supply, bringing AIDS into Iran, and all the other social maladies plaguing the Islamic Republic.

In the 1980s and 1990s many Jewish refugees were forced to flee Iran by foot through the dangerous borders of Turkey and Pakistan to seek haven in the United States, Israel, and other countries that would accept them. Such was the situation of four groups of Jews who attempted to flee Iran between 1994 and 1997 by crossing the Iranian border with Pakistan. These eleven Iranian Jews never made it to the other side: They were detained by the Islamic Republic's goons. And their story has never been fully told.

From 1995 to 1999, the cries of the families of these eleven hostages were stifled by Iranian Jewish groups with suspicious connections to the Islamic regime. These organizations counseled the families to remain silent so that they could better engage in "quiet diplomacy." It was only in 1999 — when my colleagues and I started a worldwide campaign to save the lives of the Shiraz Jews — that we discovered that the U.S. government and major American Jewish organizations such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center had not even been notified of this human tragedy. (It was only in 2002 that the State Department was convinved to include this matter in its annual human-rights report on Iran.)

No concrete action or step has been taken by any government or international human-rights organization to give these Jews their freedom. Information from various sources suggests that several (if not all) of these hostages are being kept in private prisons under the control of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (the same group that has purportedly sheltered bin Laden's son and other al Qaeda terrorists), so that they may some day be traded for one of the Islamic Republic's terrorist comrades.

The despicable behavior of the Iranian regime toward its own citizens must come to an end. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has joined our campaign to publicize the plight of Iranian Jewish hostages. You can sign various petitions to join the fight to free these Iranian Jews. I hope that you will also join the more important struggle to win freedom for all Iranians held hostage by their Islamic regime.

Iranian mullahs: Let my people go.

— Pooya Dayanim is the president of the U.S.-based Iranian Jewish Public Affairs Committee.

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