Qatar’s Deepening Persecution of the Baha’i

The history of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been one of unending religious bigotry and harsh discrimination against Iran’s Baha’i population. Today, Iran has been joined by the State of Qatar in this illegal and immoral repression of the small and peaceful Baha’i community in Qatar.

Right now, in March, April, and May 2026, the Qatari government is engaging a new campaign against the Baha’i. Like the vast majority of the Qatari population, most Baha’i are not citizens and need residency permits. In recent months there has been a surge of refusals to renew residency permits and even curtailment of existing permits. 

Here is how the Baha’i community in Qatar describes the situation, in a press release titled “Sudden expulsions raise fears of religious erasure of Qatari Bahá’í community:”

In an unexpected move, over 40 percent of Qatar’s Bahá’í population faces imminent expulsion from the country.  

The Bahá’í International Community (BIC) is alarmed that the Qatari government is carrying out a deliberate campaign of religious erasure aimed at one of the religious communities that has been present in the region for over 100 years, and whose presence in Qatar—well before the establishment of the modern Qatari state—is documented as spanning many decades.

Qatar’s small and law-abiding Baha’i community has been systematically reduced in size over decades through patterns of discrimination and pressure, including imprisonment, family separation, denial of employment, and forced departure from the country, solely on the basis of their Bahá’í identity.

In recent weeks [the statement was issued on April 30], the situation has further deteriorated, with nearly half of the remaining Bahá’ís in the country being targeted, including through unlawful detention, threats and intimidation, and notifications of non renewal of work permits, forcing them to leave the country.

UN experts on religious discrimination and on the maltreatment of minorities agree entirely with this account. A statement by the relevant UN officials last year said that they are:

concerned about the relentless restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of assembly and association, and the right to take part in cultural life of members of the Baha’i religious minority by the Qatari authorities.  These violations appear to represent a continuous pattern of targeted discrimination and persecution of this community and its members based on their religious affiliation and identity.

This year for the first time the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the U.S. government to put Qatar on its “Special Watchlist” of countries violating religious freedom. Here is part of what the Commission said: 

The government has denied residency permits to Baha’is, prosecuted community members on financial charges for unclear reasons, delayed attempts to reestablish a Baha’i cemetery, and refused to register marriage certificates issued by Baha’i institutions in Qatar. In 2025, a high-ranking Qatari religious figure told a now-deported Baha’i individual that if he announced his conversion to Sunni Islam, he could “make the deportation go away.” These practices and coercive measures cultivate fear among Baha’is of family separation, job loss, and blacklisting and therefore systematically undermine their right to freedom of religion or belief.

Why is Qatar mounting this campaign against the Baha’i now? The Baha’i have never been fairly treated there; the Baha’i community has been seeking legal recognition for 80 years and has never been granted it. But the cruelty of the current Qatari government actions is unprecedented, and its goal appears to be to reduce the size of the Baha’i community forcibly, squeezing it down until someday there are no Baha’i left in Qatar at all.

Perhaps the Qatari regime thinks that, while the Gulf is at war, it will get away with these illegal acts because attention is focused on the conflict. Perhaps the regime thinks it can pose today as an injured party, seeking peace but nevertheless hit by Iranian missiles and drones. Perhaps these actions are in part a nasty reaction to decisions by Qatar’s highest courts— which last September and October acquitted the leader of the Baha’i community when he was maliciously prosecuted by the regime for the “crime” of quoting Baha’i teachings on a social media account of the Baha’I National Spiritual Assembly.

Whatever explains the timing, these discriminatory and repressive actions by the Qatari regime are indefensible. These attacks on the small and law-abiding Baha’i community are victimizing people who have committed no crimes and seek only to live in peace and worship freely. This campaign by the Qatari regime deserves condemnation by the United States government and by all Americans who value freedom of religion.