( CNN ) -- Six Baha ' i leaders in Iran were seized and imprisoned this week , the religious group said . The act prompted condemnation and concern from the movement and a top American religious freedom panel . A U.S. panel says attacks on Iran 's Baha'is have increased since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president . Iranian intelligence agents searched the homes of the six on Wednesday and then whisked them away , according to the Baha ' i 's World News Service . The report said the six are in Evin prison and that the arrests follow the detention in March of another Baha ' i leader . The Iranian Foreign Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment , and the incident has not been mentioned in Iran 's state-run media . `` Their only crime is their practice of the Baha ' i faith , '' said Bani Dugal , the principal representative of the Baha ' i international community to the United Nations . The U.S. State Department issued a statement Friday `` strongly '' condeming the arrests , which it said were `` a clear violation of the Iranian regime 's international commitments and obligations to respect international religious freedom norms . `` We urge the authorities to release all Baha'is currently in detention and cease their ongoing harassment of the Iranian Baha ' i community , '' the U.S. statement said . The group -- regarded as the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran -- says the arrests are reminiscent of roundups and killings of Baha'is that took place in Iran two decades ago . `` Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls the wholesale arrest or abduction of the members of two national Iranian Baha ' i governing councils in the early 1980s -- which led to the disappearance or execution of 17 individuals , '' Dugal said . `` The early morning raids on the homes of these prominent Baha'is were well-coordinated , and it is clear they represent a high-level effort to strike again at the Baha'is and to intimidate the Iranian Baha ' i community at large , '' she added . The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom -- a government panel that advises the president and Congress -- condemned the Wednesday arrests , as well as another in March . The commission chairman called the acts the `` latest sign of the rapidly deteriorating status of religious freedom and other human rights in Iran . '' The commission said the seven were members of an informal Baha ' i group that tended to the needs of the community after the Iranian government banned all formal Baha ' i activity in 1983 . The commission chairman , Michael Cromartie , echoed the fears that the `` development signals a return to the darkest days of repression in Iran in the 1980s when Baha'is were routinely arrested , imprisoned , and executed . '' The Baha'is are regarded as `` apostates '' in Iran and have been persecuted there for years . `` Since 1979 , Iranian authorities have killed more than 200 Baha ' i leaders , thousands have been arrested and imprisoned , and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university jobs , '' the commission said . The commission said that since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power a few years ago , Baha'is `` have been harassed , physically attacked , arrested , and imprisoned . '' `` During the past year , young Baha ' i schoolchildren in primary and secondary schools increasingly have been attacked , vilified , pressured to convert to Islam , and in some cases , expelled on account of their religion . '' The commission said other groups in the predominantly Shiite Muslim country of Iran , such Sufis and Christians , are subject to intimidation and harassment . Ahmadinejad 's inflammatory statements about Israel have `` created a climate of fear '' among the country 's Jews . The Baha'is say they have 5 million members across the globe , and about 300,000 in Iran . The Baha'is say their faith `` is the youngest of the world 's independent religions '' and that its basic theme is that `` humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its unification in one global society . '' They say their founder , Baha ' u'llah ( 1817-1892 ) , is regarded by Baha'is as `` the most recent in the line of Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes Abraham , Moses , Buddha , Krishna , Zoroaster , Christ and Muhammad . ''
Six Baha ' i leaders arrested in attacks on their homes , Baha ' i news agency says . ` ` Their only crime is practice of their faith , '' says Baha ' i representative to U.N. No comment from Iranian government ; arrests not reported in Iran 's state - run media . U.S. government official calls this a sign of increasing religious freedom in Iran .