(JTA) — Seven members of Iran’s Bahai religious faith reportedly were sentenced to jail for allegedly spying for Israel.
The five men and two women were arrested in 2008, and Iran announced in January that they had gone on trial, Reuters reported.
Bahai spokesmen in the United States and France disclosed that the accused spies had been sentenced to 20 years in prison, though there has been no formal announcement, according to the French news agency AFP.
Some 300,000 Bahai live in Iran, making them the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. The Bahai faith was founded in Iran in 1863; its adherents are regarded as infidels in Iran.
