Editor 's note : Actor Rainn Wilson plays paper salesman Dwight Schrute in the television comedy `` The Office . '' Rainn Wilson says fellow members of his Baha ' i faith are being persecuted in Iran . ( CNN ) -- Why is Rainn Wilson , `` Dwight '' on `` The Office , '' writing a news commentary for CNN ? Good question . It 's a bit strange for me , to say the least ; a comic character actor best known for playing weirdos with bad haircuts getting all serious to talk about the persecution of the fellow members of his religious faith . Dear readers of CNN , I assure you that what I 'm writing about is no joking matter or some hoax perpetrated by a paper-sellin ' , bear-fearin ' , Battlestar-Galactica obsessed beet farmer . I am a member of the Baha ' i faith . What is that , you ask ? Well , long story short , it 's an independent world religion that began in the mid-1800s in Iran . Baha'is believe that there is only one God and therefore only one religion . All of the world 's divine teachers ( Jesus , Muhammad , Buddha , Moses , Abraham , Krishna , etc . ) bring essentially the same message -- one of unity , love and knowledge of God or the divine . This constantly updated faith of God , Baha'is believe , has been refreshed for this day and age by our founder , Baha ' u'llah . There . Nutshell version . Now , as I mentioned , this all happened in Iran , and needless to say the Muslim authorities did not like the Baha'is very much , accusing them of heresy and apostasy . Tens of thousands were killed in the early years of the faith , and the persecutions have continued off and on for the past 150 years . Why write about all this now ? Well , I 'm glad you asked . You see there 's a 'trial ' going on very soon for seven Baha ' i national leaders in Iran . They 've been accused of all manner of things including being `` spies for Israel , '' `` insulting religious sanctities '' and `` propaganda against the Islamic Republic . '' They 've been held for a year in Evin Prison in Tehran without any access to their lawyer ( the Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi ) and with zero evidence of any of these charges . When a similar thing happened in 1980 , the national leadership of the Iranian Baha ' i community disappeared . And this was repeated again in 1981 . In fact , since 1979 , more than 200 Baha'is have been killed , holy places and cemeteries desecrated , homes burned , civil rights taken away and secret lists compiled of Baha'is ( and even Muslims who associate with them ) by government agencies . It 's bad right now for all the peace-loving Baha'is in Iran who want only to practice their religion and follow their beliefs . It 's especially bad for these seven . Here 's a link to their bios . They 're teachers , and engineers , and optometrists and social workers just like us . This thought has become kind of a cliché ' , but we take our rights for granted here in America . Imagine if a group of people were rounded up and imprisoned and then disappeared not for anything they 'd done , but because they wanted to worship differently than the majority . There is a resolution on the situation of the Baha'is in Iran being sent to Congress . Please ask your representatives to support it . And ask them to speak out about this terrible situation . Thanks for reading . Now back to bears , paper and beets ! The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rainn Wilson .
Rainn Wilson : I 'm a member of the Baha ' i faith , founded in the 1800s in Iran . He says the faith has been persecuted on and off for 150 years . Seven Baha ' i leaders are going on trial in Iran on a variety of charges , he says . Wilson : Ask your congressman to support a resolution on the Baha'is .