What do you believe of the persecution of the Baha'i people in Iran by muslims?

direct quote from a NY Times article I've sourced as a link-

For centuries the city of Shiraz, in southwestern Iran, has been a center of Persian poetry and intellectual life. The very word ''Persian'' comes from Pars, the name of the region centering on Shiraz. It is also the birthplace of the Bab, a 19th-century prophet whose teachings led to the creation of the Baha'i faith.

Two weeks ago in that city, the latest chapter in a long history of the Baha'i persecution unfolded before an Islamic tribunal. Of 21 members of the sect on trial for spying and alleged links with Israel, 20 were condemned to death, according to a Baha'i spokesman in London. The remaining defendant was pardoned.

The Baha'is have been the scapegoats of Persian and then Iranian society for generations. Donald M. Barrett, the secretary-general of the Baha'i World Center in Haifa, Israel, says 20,000 Baha'is have been killed in Iran during the last 100 years. Since the advent of the Khomeini regime in 1979 at least 135 Baha'is, many of them spiritual leaders, have been executed.

The adherents of this relatively little-known religion seem unlikely villains. They uphold the divine origin of all major religions, including Islam. They shun violence, abstain from partisan politics and advocate unexceptionable principles such as the ''development of good character'' and the ''eradication of prejudices of race, creed, class, nationality and sex,'' to quote from a recent pamphlet.