When Flora and her husband left Iran in 1987, they left behind a country which 10 years earlier had been a largely secular and quickly modernizing state.

All that changed in 1979, with the overthrow of the Shah during the country's Liberty Revolution. That year, Iran's ancient imperial power was deposed and replaced by the Islamist leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran became the first country to have a

fundamental Muslim leader as its head of state.

As followers of the Baha'i faith, the largest religious minority in Iran, Flora and her husband became second-class citizens overnight.

Previous to the revolution, she had been studying at university and her husband was employed by a large copper mining company.

In the months following the revolution, officials of the new government began culling non-Muslims from Iran's powerful mining and oil companies. Next, they turned to schools.

"They kicked me out of university and then we started struggling,” the Whitehorse resident recalled this week.

"My husband started fishing, but he couldn't even fish because he was Baha'i.”

Flora has asked that only her first name be used because she still fears retribution for speaking about the treatment she and her husband received during their last years in Iran.

"All Baha'i lost their jobs in government, in teaching. In their language, they say, they cleaned it up.”

With no way to make money, and living in constant fear of being arrested because of their faith, Flora and her husband fled the country.

They paid a smuggler to get them into Pakistan. There, they were interviewed by Canadian officials and eventually accepted as refugees to this country.

Flora's daughter was born in Ontario and in 1998, the family moved to Whitehorse.

Today, 30 years and 9,000 kilometres away from her homeland, Flora said she is very aware that the Baha'is who remain in Iran face constant persecution.

"Whoever is Baha'i, not only can they not practise their own religion, they can't work, they can't go to university. They can't get together, even for a tea. If they get together, the revolutionary army comes and asks them questions.

"... (The army) can take them for absolutely nothing and they torture them and they kill them – for absolutely nothing. They did it 30 years ago, and they do it today.”

Flora spoke to the Star on the eve of the trial of seven Baha'i leaders who have been held in Iran's Evin prison for almost two years.

They are accused of espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, according to a July 2009 amnesty International report.

Conviction on these charges could result in the death penalty, in a country with one of the highest rates of capital punishment in the world, the report notes.

"Because our holy temple is in Israel, they connected us with them, and that was our first crime,” Flora said of the espionage charge.

"But that's absolutely, 100-per-cent wrong, because a Baha'i person, by the rule of our book, is not allowed to have anything to do with the government.”

More Baha'is were arrested in December on the Muslim holy day of Ashura, CNN reported earlier this month.

They are accused of inciting civil unrest and Iranian officials said firearms were found in their homes, a claim which members of Whitehorse's Baha'i community say is patently false because Baha'i are avowed pacifists.

"That's like saying you'd find guns and ammunition in the houses of peace activists,” Yukon MP Larry Bagnell said today in an interview with the Star.

"As long as all the Yukoners know the Baha'i faith is a very peaceful religion and the only thing they want is peace and love, that is what we want,” Flora said. "In Iran, they are suffering. They are a victim of the religion.”

Bagnell has been speaking to members of the Yukon's 175-person Baha'i community about this trial since the seven were first arrested last spring.

In March 2009, he made a speech to the House of Commons asking the Canadian government to use diplomatic means to "stand behind these people, many of whom are women and are totally unjustly charged.”

According to recent updates on the Baha'i International media site, the trial began this morning, with lawyers of the seven accused having to argue their way into court.

No international or human rights observers have been allowed into the courtroom, according to reports.