; (3) government officials arrested 14 Baha’is during a religious study in Ghaemshahr; and (4) the Government of Iran continued its systematic campaign of Baha’i arrests throughout the latter part of 2022; Whereas, in response to a surge in persecution in June and July 2022, involving the subjection of over 100 Baha’is to arrests, arraignments, sentencings, and raids on their homes and businesses across Iran, including the sentencing in June of 26 individuals in the city of Shiraz to a combined total of 85 years in prison, the Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom issued a statement on August 2, 2022, indicating that [a]mid a continued rise in arrests, sentences, and imprisonments, the U.S. urges Iran to halt its ongoing oppression of the Baha’i community and honor its international obligations to respect the right of all Iranians to freedom of religion or belief ; Whereas the Iran section of the Department of State’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom issued in May 2023 provides, in part— (1) According to the Baha’i International Community (BIC), Amnesty International, multiple international news organizations, and the United Nations, in July and August, security forces in cities across the country conducted multiple raids of Baha’i homes, confiscated property deemed ‘illegitimate wealth,’ and arrested Baha’is in their homes or workplaces on unsubstantiated charges including ‘causing intellectual and ideological insecurity in Muslim society. ; (2) In August, a group of UN human rights experts released a joint statement calling on the government to stop the increasing arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances of members of the Baha’i Faith and the destruction or confiscation of their properties in what the experts said bears all the signs of a policy of systematic persecution . ; and (3) In their August 22 statement, the UN experts stated that as of April, more than 1,000 Baha’is awaited imprisonment, following their initial arrest and hearings.