Exclusive: US denounces Iran's coercion of Jews into voting in presidential election

Washington — The U.S. State Department has described as “deplorable” reports Iran’s tiny Jewish minority was coerced into participating in the recent Iranian presidential election, in a statement obtained exclusively by VOA.

The reported coercive measures, verified by VOA, included Iranian authorities for the first time setting up special ballot stations for Jews to vote in a presidential contest and organizing an unprecedented campaign event for Jews to meet presidential candidates’ representatives.

Iran’s Jews, like its other religious minorities, have endured discrimination and persecution since 1979, when radical Shiite clerics opposed to the Jewish state of Israel’s existence seized power.

The State Department’s latest annual report on international religious freedom, published last month, cites the Tehran Jewish Committee as saying there are approximately 9,000 Jews out of Iran’s estimated population of 89 million.

Reports indicate that community was coerced into participating in the presidential election held in two rounds on June 28 and July 5.

Former Iranian Health Minister Masoud Pezeshkian, a loyalist of the Islamic republic’s authoritarian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was declared the election’s winner. Its two rounds had official turnouts of under 50%, as most of Iran's electorate boycotted a contest in which Khamenei loyalists were the only candidates.

In its statement to VOA, the State Department said it was aware of the reported coercion of Jews into participating in the vote.

“The behavior described in those reports is deplorable,” a spokesperson said. “We never had expectations that Iran’s presidential elections would be free or fair, so these reports of coercion, while awful, are unsurprising.”

Iran’s U.N. mission in New York did not respond to a VOA request, emailed Friday, for comment on why Tehran took unprecedented steps to involve Jews in the election.

The main step involved Iranian authorities setting up ballot stations exclusively for Jews to vote in five Jewish facilities in Tehran, home to most of the country’s Jews. The main organization advocating for Jewish interests in the Islamic Republic, the Tehran Jewish Committee, said in a June 20 Telegram post that it was the first time Jews had been allocated special ballot stations for a presidential election.

Iranian authorities previously set up Jewish ballot stations only for parliamentary elections, in which Jews can vote for the Iranian assembly’s sole Jewish minority lawmaker as well as for their provincial representative.

The five Jewish ballot stations for the presidential election, listed by the Tehran Jewish Committee, were in government-run schoolrooms of Jewish synagogue and educational complexes. They included the Abrishami synagogue’s Mousa Ben Amran High School, the Ettefagh synagogue’s educational complex, the Fakhr-e-Danesh girls’ school, the Roohi Shad boys’ school, and the Zargarian synagogue’s Alliance school.

Iran’s sole Jewish lawmaker, Homayoon Sameh Yeh Najafabadi, used his Telegram channel to post photos of himself, prominent Iranian Rabbi Younes Hamami Lalehzar and other Jews voting at the Mousa Ben Amran school in the second round of the election on July 5. The images showed them putting their ballots into boxes as the ballot station’s Muslim staff looked on.

Earlier, Najafabadi posted photos on Telegram showing himself and other Jews voting at a ballot station in the city of Isfahan in the election’s first round on June 28.

In another unprecedented step, Iranian authorities organized a meeting between presidential candidates’ representatives and Jewish community members at Tehran’s main synagogue of Yousef Abad on June 26, two days before the election’s first round.

The Tehran Jewish Committee and Najafabadi both urged Jews to attend the event, in messages posted on their Telegram channels on June 23 and June 24, respectively. They did not post any photos of the event itself.

Iranian state media published other images of Jews participating in the presidential election. Jews were photographed smiling for the cameras as they cast ballots at an Isfahan mosque on July 5. Other Jews were filmed voting in Shiraz on July 5, with two men telling a reporter they were demonstrating loyalty to the Islamic Republic.

Thamar Gindin, an Iran expert at the Ezri Center of Israel's Haifa University, told VOA that pressuring Jews to vote in Iran’s presidential election is part of a pattern of coercive behavior by the Islamic Republic. She cited the example of hundreds of Iranian Jews staging an unprecedented series of anti-Israel rallies in five Iranian cities October 30, as multiple Iranian state news agencies filmed and photographed them.

“Iran’s Jews generally are scared into being good, loyal citizens who are used for propaganda,” Gindin said.

She said one fear they have is being identified as dissenters if they do not participate in elections.

“Not voting is a strong statement, akin to saying this regime stole the country from the Iranian nation, and I will not cooperate with that. The Jewish community does not want to make this statement. They may agree with it, but they will never externalize it,” she said.

Gindin said the Islamic Republic rewards its Jews for their propaganda roles by giving them a feeling of being important.

But playing those roles for Iran’s presidential election poses new dangers for the Jewish minority, according to Iranian American Jewish activist George Haroonian.

In a VOA interview, Haroonian said setting up Jewish ballot stations would give Iranian authorities access to data showing how many Jews voted and which presidential candidates they voted for.

“This is another form of discrimination,” Haroonian said. “It also is a reminder that Iran’s Jews are hostages who could be attacked and arrested at any moment and under any pretext, just as the regime does to others whom it wants to intimidate into submission.”