The scale of repression against minority groups in Iran is a central but under-reported factor in the renewed struggle for democracy, says Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in a new briefing. With a rise in reports of political repression since the disputed elections of June 2009, minorities face widespread violations and severe restrictions on cultural and religious freedoms…Iran's constitution declares the state as Shi’a Muslim and some of those religious minorities who do not share this professed religious identity have suffered widespread abuse, says the briefing…The persecution of any Iranian minority is most pronounced in the case of the Baha’is. This religious minority group does not enjoy the constitutional guarantees that are formally afforded by the state to Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians, nor any legal protection under Iran’s Islamic laws. Officially, they are considered heretics who constitute a political opposition and not a religious community. The informal leadership of the Iranian Baha’i community, who have been detained since 2008, were sentenced in 2010 to ten years of imprisonment on charges of conspiring against the Islamic Republic, and their lawyers –drawn from Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi’s The Defenders of Human Rights Center – have also been subject to intimidation, imprisonment, and attacks.