Click to expand Image The Ministry of Interior Office in Doha, Qatar, May 5, 2021. © 2021 Shutterstock (Beirut) – The Qatari authorities since March 2026 have ordered at least four people with roles in key institutions of the minority Baha’i religion to leave the country, Human Rights Watch said today, based on information from informed sources. The four were ordered to leave without due process and with no legal pathway to challenge the orders. The people ordered to leave, who have lived in Qatar for decades and have families there, risk deportation in violation of their right to family life. Qatari authorities’ longstandingdiscrimination against Baha’is separates families and results in the loss of employment and income. Human Rights Watch has documented asignificant rise in persecution of Baha’is since the beginning of the armed conflict between Israel, the United States, and Iran.  “Qatari authorities have sought external support and sympathy as the target of Iranian attacks while continuing their repression in Qatar,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Qatar’s deportations of Baha’is will uproot families and tear them apart.” Human Rights Watch interviewed three people between April and June with knowledge of the cases.  The Baha’i faith is centered around the unity of all faiths and people. Baha’i followers are frequently discriminated against in Qatar, Egypt, and Yemen, and subjected to the crime against humanity of persecution in Iran.  On March 3, a Baha’i married couple was told to appear at the Qatar Ministry of Interior’s Search and Follow-Up department the following day, the source said. At the ministry on March 4, Qatari authorities informed them that they must leave Qatar and will be banned from returning without providing a reason or a way to challenge the decision.  The wife, born a