A Bahai family in Melbourne is living in fear for the life of a relative detained in Yemen after another Bahai man was sentenced to death by a court in the capital, Sanaa, this month.
The uncle of one of the members of the Melbourne family is among several Bahai men in detention in Yemen.
The Melbourne family, who are not Yemeni, do not wish to be identified because of the risk to their relatives in the war-torn country.
Hamed bin Haydara, 53, a prominent man in Yemen's Bahai community, was sentenced to death in absentia by a judge of a special criminal court controlled by Houthi rebels, on January 2.
He has been in prison in Sanaa since 2013, charged with spying for Israel and converting Muslims to the Bahai faith.
An execution date has not been announced and it is not known how the sentence would be carried out, but the judge ordered that it be done in public.
Mr Haydara has faced a series of court hearings since January 2015, often with lengthy delays and cancellation of sessions in between.
With Yemen in turmoil, the judge and other officials have changed over the period of the hearings.
An appeal against the death sentence has been lodged, but the procedures are unclear.
The court also ordered that Mr Haydara's assets be confiscated and elected Bahai councils that look after the spiritual and material needs of the community be dissolved.
Mr Haydara has been tortured while in detention, his wife, who has visited him in jail, has said.
This claim has been backed up by sources inside Yemen, combined with reports from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Although accurate statistics are not available, it is believed that only a few thousand Bahais live in Yemen.
The Shiite Houthis, backed by Iran, seized control of Sanaa in 2015.
They have since been at war with a Saudi-led coalition that is seeking to restore the previous government.
Natalie Mobini, director of the Office of External Affairs for the Australian Bahai Community, said the charges against Mr Haydara were baseless.
"The charge of spying relates solely to the location of the Bahai World Centre, which has been located in the Holy Land since the 19th century, long before the creation of Israel,
"Furthermore, Bahai teachings forbid proselytising. An individual's decision about whether to become a Bahai is entirely up to them.
"Mr Haydara has not committed any crime, let alone one that warrants the death penalty."
Dr Mobini called on the international community to speak out.
"It would be a travesty to publicly execute an innocent man for contacting senior administrators of his religion, a law-abiding group known for abstaining from political activity," she said.
"Bahais in all parts of the world are in contact with their world centre in Israel," she said.
"This is entirely natural and does not imply any political agenda or interference in the affairs of government.
"The judge himself pointed out to the prosecutor that there was no substantive evidence presented during the court proceedings, so the judgment to publicly execute Mr Haydara was unexpected as well as being completely unjustified.
"The action taken against such an upstanding citizen, together with the persecution of the Yemeni Bahais as a whole, have the clear fingerprints of the Iranian authorities all over them.
"This attack on a community admired by a wide range of senior Yemeni officials and many ordinary citizens is shameful and deserves international exposure and condemnation.
"We now fear that the six other Bahais who have been imprisoned and the Bahai community as a whole are in imminent danger.
"Australian Bahais call upon the Houthi authorities to uphold justice and to overturn this unjust ruling.
"They must immediately release Mr Haydara and all other Bahai prisoners. We also ask the international community to continue to speak up on the issue."
Former federal immigration minister, Philip Ruddock, now the mayor of Hornsby in Sydney's north has added his voice to the condemnation.
Mr Ruddock issued a statement on Friday saying he was "horrified to learn of the recent decision in Sanaa Yemen to sentence to death Mr Hamed bin Haydara".
"My understanding is that he is of the Bahai faith and has been imprisoned already for some four years because of his religious beliefs.
"On 2 January 2018 Mr Hamed bin Haydara was sentenced to be publicly executed.
"This is a matter of very real and substantial concern given the universal commitment to religious freedom and the importance of ensuring that people are free to practise their faith.
"This is a strongly held view in Hornsby Shire, which is proud of its own Bahai community that contributes so positively."
Human rights group Amnesty International has also spoken out.
"The Houthi authorities must immediately quash the death sentence against Hamed Haydara," Amnesty said. "He is a prisoner of conscience who has been tried on account of his conscientiously held beliefs and peaceful activities as a member of the Bahai community."
Amnesty said it had written to Sanaa-based officials in March last year about "the deeply flawed legal proceedings in his case, including prolonged pre-trial detention, undue delays in [the] trial, allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in custody, lack of access to adequate medical treatment and lack of access to legal counsel during his interrogations". However, it had received no response.
The other six Bahai prisoners in Yemen have been identified as Kaiwan Ghaderi (detained on August 10, 2016), Walid Ayyash (April 20, 2017), Mahmud Hameed (April 20, 2017), Wael Al-Arieghie (May 23, 2017), Badiullah Sana'i (May 25, 2017, for a second time), Akkram Ayyash (October 22, 2017).
Australian Bahais have also called for the release of a number of Bahai leaders imprisoned in Iran for almost 10 years.
At least five of them have close relatives living in Australia.
Three of the leaders, Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi and Behrouz Tavakkoli have been freed. The others still in detention are Afif Naeimi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Saeid Rezaie and Vahid Tizfahm.
The Iranian Bahai community has undergone severe persecution since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
The Bahai faith originated in Iran in 1844 but is now banned there. Its world centre is in Israel.
