Fariba Kamalabadi

Fariba Kamalabadi (b. September 12, 1962) is a Persian Bahá’í currently imprisoned in Iran. She has previously served a ten year prison sentence for her service on the Yárán, an ad hoc committee responsible for seeing to the social and spiritual needs of Bahá’ís in Iran.

Biography

Kamalabadi was born into a Bahá’í family in Tehran in 1962. She excelled in academic studies in her youth, graduating from High School with honors, however she was barred from enrolling in University studies due to being a Bahá’í. In 1982 she married fellow Bahá’í Ruhollah Taefi and they had three children. During the 1980's her father was dismissed from his job as a physician, imprisoned, and tortured due to his beliefs.

Kamalabadi was later able to complete an advanced degree in developmental psychology through the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education in the 1990's through eight years of informal study and began working as a developmental psychologist. In addition to her studies she was an active member of the Bahá’í community and she was arrested twice for her volunteer work being imprisoned for one month and two months.

As of 2008 Kamalabadi was serving as a member of the Yárán. That year the government of Iran declared the group illegal, arrested its membership, and sentenced the members to twenty years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to ten years and in October 2017 Kamalabadi was released from Evin Prison. In 2022 she was arrested again and sentenced to ten years in prison alongside fellow former Yárán member Mahvash Sabet. They were sentenced in a trial which lasted only one hour with the Judge rebuking them for "not having learned their lesson" from their previous sentence.