Iran Says 28 Arrested with 'Links to Satellite Channels'

Iran has arrested 28 people, some with links to the Bahai faith, on charges of working with "anti-revolutionary" satellite channels, Tehran's prosecutor said on Tuesday.

"Twenty-eight people were arrested across Tehran last night for cooperating with anti-revolutionary networks," Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said in remarks reported by the ISNA news agency.

"They are accused of involvement with immoral and anti-revolutionary networks, which they helped to keep on air by doing translations and dubbing in underground studios," Jafari Dolatabadi said.

He did not identify the networks, which broadcasted from abroad and are watched via satellite receivers that are illegal in Iran.

Dolatabadi said "some of those arrested cooperated with Bahai networks." He did not elaborate.

In September 2011, Iran arrested six people accused of gathering information for the BBC's Farsi language service, which Tehran deems hostile to its regime.

The Bahais, who are barred from higher education and government posts in staunchly Shiite Muslim Iran, are regarded as infidels by the majority community and have been persecuted both before and after the country's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The Bahais consider Bahaullah, born in 1817, to be the latest prophet sent by God and believe in the spiritual unity of all religions and all mankind.