Actress Eva LaRue is among the notable figures offering their support. Also featured in the video are Senator Kirk; U.S. Representative from New York, Michael Grimm; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Kathleen Fitzpatrick; Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the U.S., Kenneth E. Bowers; and brother of one of the imprisoned leaders, Iraj Kamalabadi.

Read a full review of the reception.

—

Source: http://iran.bahai.us/2011/11/21/video-yaran-iran-bahai-leaders/

]]> http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8631/feed 1 http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8539 http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8539#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 03:05:01 +0000 editor http://www.iranpresswatch.org/?p=8539 — source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-z5gibmukc ]]> The Aussies rally covered by SBS

Click here to view the embedded video.

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source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-z5gibmukc

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Source: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/video/l531359/Aussies-rally-for-Bahai-academics

Sadly members of such a well respected Faith are oppressed and persecuted in Iran, which goes against all International Human Rights treaties and laws. A couple from New Zealand wishing to show their support for this oppressed minority organised a walk in Auckland, New Zealand to bring awareness to the plight of the Bahá’ís in Iran which still continues to this day.This episode follows that event.

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Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq03OiUQwUM

Established in 2008 by Rio’s Committee for Combating Religious Intolerance (CCIR), the Religious Freedom Walk initially aimed to call attention to the prejudice faced in Brazil by followers of traditional Afro-Brazilian religions. Since then, the march has become an annual event, growing from 2,000 participants at the first rally to this year’s record figure.

Yesterday, Afro-Brazilian religious leaders were joined by Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Buddhists and Baha’is, all united in their aim to draw attention to intolerance.

Baha’is distributed 1,000 yellow vests bearing the slogan, “Today, we are followers of all religions” – a sentiment that was happily worn by participants from the different communities.

In the opening speech of the rally, CCIR’s coordinator, Babalorixa Ivanir dos Santos, highlighted the persecution faced by Iranian Baha’is and called the crowd’s attention to the “group in yellow” who, in his words, “are active supporters of the cause of religious freedom in Brazil.”

Leaders and representatives from the gathered communities then addressed the rally about the need to respect others.

“Prejudice, stereotypes and lack of information about the various religious traditions make people behave irrationally against those who have different beliefs,” Brazilian Baha’i Iradj Roberto Eghrari told the crowd.

“It is as if they stop seeing these ‘other people’ as human beings, as people who deserve respect and fair treatment,” he said.

Mr. Eghrari spoke of the seven Iranian Baha’i leaders who have been kept behind bars since 2008, sentenced to 20-year jail terms on trumped-up charges.

“There are many similarities between the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran and the Afro-Brazilian religions here,” he said. “Properties are destroyed and confiscated, children are harassed and youth cannot have access to education because of their beliefs. And the only way in which the oppressors agree to leave these people alone is if they agree to recant their faith – but how can you forcefully remove a religious belief from a person without tearing him or her completely apart?”

Ivan Dos Santos, an organizer of the march, said religious intolerance generates racism and threatens democracy.

“Religion is a cause of war in the world, but here we are bringing the religions together to dialogue,” he said.

“Our movement is not religious, it does not promote any faith, just the right to be respected.”

Baha’i World News Service coverage of the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran

The Baha’i World News Service has published a Special Report which includes further articles and background information about Iran’s campaign to deny higher education to Baha’is. It contains news of latest developments, a summary of the situation, feature articles, case studies and testimonials from students, resources and links.

Another Special Report offers articles and background information about the seven Iranian Baha’i leaders – their lives, their imprisonment, trial and sentencing – and the allegations made against them. It also offers further resources about the persecution of Iran’s Baha’i community.

The International Reaction page of the Baha’i World News service is regularly updated with responses from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and prominent individuals, to actions taken against the Baha’is of Iran.

The Media Reports page presents a digest of media coverage from around the world.

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Source: http://news.bahai.org/story/850

Michael Binyon

July 29 2011 5:34PM

[thetimes.co.uk, 30 July 2011] Few religions have known such vicious persecution in the land of their birth. The Baha’is, for the past 30 years, have suffered systematic discrimination and harassment by the Iranian authorities. Their leaders have been arrested and tortured, their homes raided, their teachings forbidden and their communities shunned as pariahs.

Since the Khomeini revolution in 1979 Iran’s 300,000 Baha’is have been denounced as apostates and infidels, enjoying none of the Koranic protections afforded to Christians and

Jews.

The intimidation has recently intensified pace. Three years ago seven Baha’i leaders were arrested, accused of spying for Israel, spreading corruption and acting against the State. Eventually all the charges were quashed except that of tending to the spiritual and social needs of their community — a charge that proves, senior Baha’is insist, that what lies at the heart of the persecution is the hatred by Islamist extremists of the Baha’i faith itself.

“We are gravely concerned about the situation,” said Kishan Manocha, a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of Baha’is in the UK. “The regime is fostering a climate of hatred. Baha’is in Iran have no constitutional rights. More than 100 are in prison at the moment. They are ordered not to practise their faith. There are striking similarities with the way Jews were treated by the Nazis.”

Silence and secrecy were not an option, however. “To practise our religion in secret is tantamount to giving up our faith,” Dr Manocha said. Already in 1983 his co-religionists in Iran had been forced to disband their administration. After further arrests in 2008 even the ad hoc leadership was dissolved. Baha’is have no ecclesiastical orders, but have been left with almost no effective way of transmitting their beliefs or holding their community together.

The Baha’i faith is the youngest of the world’s independent religions, founded by Baha’u’llah in Iran in the 19th century. Today its adherents number more than five million, in almost every country of the world. It is, adherents claim, the second most geographically widespread religion after Christianity, with communities established almost a century ago in Europe, Canada and the US. They are most numerous in India, where there are around 1.6 million. In Britain there are about 6,000, and they possess an elegantly tranquil headquarters in a London house just off Hyde Park.

The Baha’is forbid proselytising, as Baha’u’llah taught that each individual should be free to seek the truth free of coercion or compulsion. Any attempt to win Muslims to the faith would also arouse fierce opposition in Muslim countries, where Baha’is have been seen as a deviance from Islam. But quiet example has inspired a growing interest, especially in Western Europe, and the community has recently seen a resurgence as younger members have been engaged in social outreach and community work.

In Swindon, for example, Baha’is have been working in schools as volunteers to help to instil a respect for spiritual values and to counter the disaffection among young people. It is, Manocha said, an inclusive process, not in competition with other faith groups. This “call to service” is not obligatory but is widely observed by Baha’is who insist that their faith enjoins them to “cultivate capacity” and act as effective agents of social change. “To become a Baha’i is not difficult,” Manocha says. “There is a general search for receptivity, and we tap into it. Anyone who looks at it and wants to be part of it can do so. This is an individual’s choice.”

Quoting the teachings of Bah’u’llah, Fidelma Meehan, who grew up as an Irish Roman Catholic, said that “Man is a mine rich in gems of inestimable value”. The Baha’i duty was to draw out these treasures in a way that was directed to positive social change. She said the doctrine of “progressive revelation”, the notion that all faiths were divine manifestations of a single faith, meant that there was no difficulty for Baha’is to work with Catholics or Protestants or any faith also engaged in community work and spiritual education.

This has proved difficult, however, in countries where religious tolerance is diminishing, especially across the Muslim world. But in Pakistan Baha’is are still recognised in the Constitution as a non-Muslim community. “God willing, there have been no attacks on our community,” Manocha said.

He praised efforts by Britain to insist on an end to religious persecution in Iran. “There needs to be constant, robust scrutiny. Iran takes that very seriously. At any human rights meeting, Iran sends out people to assure the world that all is well. It does care, and this matters.”

One problem for Baha’is is the coincidence that Baha’u’llah, exiled from Persia, died in Acre, in Ottoman Palestine in 1892. In 1909 the remains of the Bab, Baha’u’llah’s forerunner who was killed in 1850, were laid to rest in Mount Carmel in a shrine designated by Baha’u’llah himself. In 1963 the Universal House of Justice, the Baha’i world headquarters, was opened in Haifa — which is now in Israel. This has given Islamist opponents of the faith an easy pretext to accuse Baha’is of connections with Israel, which is one of the charges frequently levelled in Iran.

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]]> http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8285/feed 0 http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8087 http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8087#comments Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:46:20 +0000 editor http://www.iranpresswatch.org/?p=8087 (BWNS 6 July 2011) HILVERSUM, Netherlands — A series of special postage stamps portraying victims of human rights abuses in Iran has been launched in the Netherlands.

Current and forthcoming stamps in the series depict the acclaimed poet Simin Behbahani; trade unionist Mansour Osanlou; Mahvash Sabet – one of Iran’s seven Baha’i leaders; and human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

The stamps are officially accepted by the Netherlands’ national postal service and are valid for use on mail.

The initiative was the brainchild of Mina Saadadi, managing editor of media organization Shahrzad News, which produces radio programs and online content in Persian and English.

“Here in the Netherlands, we have the possibility to publish and design our own stamps,” said Ms. Saadadi. “There are a lot of violations of human rights in Iran, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we cover the different sections of Iranian society and give a face to those who are under pressure?’”

Shahrzad News has entered into partnerships with relevant organizations to produce and promote the stamps. The one depicting Mansour Osanlou, the imprisoned leader of a transport workers’ union, has been used on letters to Iran from the Dutch federation of trade unions – Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging (FNV) – concerning the situation of Iranian labor activists.

Five thousand copies of the stamp showing Mahvash Sabet have just been printed.

“It’s very moving to see the face of someone who has been willing to sacrifice everything for her values going out on letters and postcards all over the world,” said Marga Maartens of the Netherlands Baha’i community.

A trained psychologist, Mrs. Sabet worked as a teacher and a principal at several schools. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, however, along with thousands of other Baha’i educators, she was fired from her job and barred from working in public education.

Mrs. Sabet has been incarcerated since 5 March 2008. She was the first to be arrested of a seven-member, national-level ad hoc group that helped attend to the needs of Iran’s 300,000-strong Baha’i community. After an illegal 30-month detention, the seven were tried on trumped-up charges and each sentenced in August 2010 to 20 years in jail.

“In many ways, this stamp not only represents the seven leaders – and the other 90 or so Baha’i prisoners in Iran – but all who are victimized for standing up for their principles,” said Ms. Maartens.

“At a time when the Iranian authorities are clamping down on community initiatives to educate young Baha’is who are banned from university, Mrs. Sabet – as a teacher, a mother and a Baha’i – symbolizes a commitment to education, and the right to freedom of religion for all.”

Nasrin Sotoudeh – whose face will appear on another stamp in the series – is a prominent lawyer who has represented numerous victims of human rights abuses, including prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. In January this year, authorities sentenced Ms. Sotoudeh to 11 years in prison for charges that include “activities against national security” and “propaganda against the regime.” Additionally, she has been barred from practicing law and from leaving Iran for 20 years.

83-year old Simin Behbahani – also to be depicted on a stamp – is one of the most prominent figures in modern Persian literature. Called the “lioness of Iran” by her admirers, she is also unable to leave the country.

Shahrzad News is publishing articles about the stamps and presenting them at events including, for example, a conference held in the Netherlands last week attended by some 300 Iranian women.

“They were glad to hear about the idea of giving a face to people who are struggling in Iran,” said Ms. Saadadi.

“The art is for groups to be able to connect together with others while focusing on their own issue. It is very important to work with others; ethnic minorities, religious minorities, other movements, are not loud enough to be heard alone.”

—

Source: http://news.bahai.org/story/838

Participants travelled from all over Brazil to take part in the rally, held at Rio’s Copacabana Beach yesterday, some spending up to 15 hours on buses to get there.

Almost 8,000 images depicting the faces of Iran’s seven imprisoned Baha’i leaders were on display at the beach, corresponding to the number of days of detention the seven had suffered after three years in prison. The photographs were arranged in a large circle, representing the world, and the union of people of all races and nations.

In his remarks, Brazilian congressman Chico Alencar set the tone for the day’s activities, saying, “Religious freedom is something that cannot be touched.”

A Jewish participant, Natan Klabin, agreed. “We know well what it is to be persecuted because of one’s religion, and thus we know how important it is to show solidarity with other repressed minorities,” he said.

Babalowa Ivanir dos Santos – representing the Afro-Brazilian religion, Candomble – spoke of the persecution his community has often faced. “This is why we feel that we must protest against all kinds of religious intolerance. I hope one day we will no longer need to promote demonstrations like this one, in any country,” said Mr. Santos.

One thousand yellow vests – printed with the phrases “Today we are all Baha’is” and “Free the 7 Baha’is imprisoned in Iran” – were distributed, along with leaflets about religious freedom. Musicians also contributed to the programme, performing songs on the themes of freedom and solidarity.

Brazilian Baha’i Iradj Eghrari said that demonstrating solidarity among religions is essential to show the Iranian authorities that persecution is not only a matter of concern for Baha’is.

“If a person does not demonstrate support towards persecuted religious minorities, he or she may well be the next victim of religious intolerance,” said Mr. Eghrari.

The seven imprisoned Baha’i leaders were members of a national-level ad hoc group that helped attend to the needs of Iran’s 300,000-strong Baha’i community. After an illegal 30 month detention, they were tried on trumped-up charges and each sentenced in August 2010 to 20 years in jail.

—

Source: http://news.bahai.org/story/834

]]> http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/8019/feed 6 http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/7203 http://www.iranpresswatch.org/post/7203#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:15:45 +0000 editor http://www.iranpresswatch.org/?p=7203

Michael J. Totten

December 9, 2010 – by Michael J. Totten

Iran’s most repressed religious minority is also its largest. Members of the community are routinely imprisoned, frequently executed, banned from universities, and ruthlessly repressed economically. Tens of thousands have been murdered by one regime after another. The current government—the Khomeinist “Islamic Republic”—goes farther than any other by vowing to crush these people wherever they live and erase them from the face of the earth.

There are only six or seven million in the entire world, and their spiritual home is in Israel. I am not, however, referring here to the Jews, but to the Bahais.

The Bahai gardens in Haifa, Israel

[In the picture used on the right, the Shrine of the Bab is coverd for maintenance work. please see this picture for the Baha'i Gardens with the golden dome of the Shrine of the Bab]

Their world headquarters is in Israel, and they came during Ottoman times from Persian lands. The nation-state of one of the world’s oldest religions now hosts the holiest site of one of the newest, and the nation where the Bahai Faith was born vows to destroy the nation where the Bahai Faith had to migrate.

The strikingly different treatments of these people by Iran and by Israel infuses the looming showdown between the Middle East’s two most powerful countries with even more moral clarity than it already had.

The U.S. State Department rates Iran one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world, particularly for its repression against the Bahais. “Bahai religious groups reported arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention,” says its most recent annual report, “expulsions from universities, and confiscation of property. During the reporting period government-controlled broadcast and print media intensified negative campaigns against religious minorities, particularly the Bahais.” Even the United National General Assembly recently condemned the Iranian government on similar grounds.

Around 300,000 Bahais are still in Iran, ten times the number of Christians and Jews there. Two million or so live in India. There are many more in South America and Africa. Only 150,000 or so live in the U.S., but the faith has been growing in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Most worship in their houses, but there are community centers in places where enough Bahais are concentrated. There’s a house of worship on each continent. North America’s is in Chicago. South America’s is in Chile. Asia’s is in Delhi.

The Bahai house of worship in Chicago, Illinois

But the world spiritual center for the Bahai faith–its “Jerusalem,” so to speak–is in Israel on the slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa. Rob Weinberg gave me a tour. He’s a Bahai from the UK and has been serving there since late fall in 2009. And he told me the story of how his faith began in Persia in the middle of the 19th century.

“It was a time of great expectation,” he said, “when the Muslims were awaiting the coming of a promised great teacher. Also, in the Christian world, in the West, there were expectations about the return of Christ. There was a great deal of ferment.”

Rob Weinberg

In 1844 a young man named Mirza Ali Muhammad, a merchant in the city of the Iranian city of Shiraz, said he was the herald of a new revelation from God. He announced the coming of the new great teacher.

“He called himself the Báb,” Weinberg said, “which means ‘the gate’ in Arabic, and his teachings began to spread throughout Persia. Thousands upon thousands of people responded and were very attracted to the teaching. He said a new day had come, a day when religions would become united, when people would recognize their oneness, when the equality of men and women would be established.”

One of his first followers was a poet who removed her veil in public, something unheard of in that day, though it was perfectly normal before the Khomeinists took over in 1979. “There were reports of a man cutting his throat,” Weinberg said, “because he was so shocked at the audacity of this act.”

This new religion alarmed the authorities as it spread. Shia Muslims were abandoning Islam and becoming Bábis, followers of the Báb. Pogroms followed, and 20,000 were executed, many in horrible ways. They were executed not because they were criminals, nor for political reasons. They were executed because they were heretics. The Báb himself was publicly executed in 1850 in Tabriz.

Tabriz is an Azeri city. In Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan—the now-sovereign Azeri land detached long ago from the Persian Empire by Czarist Russia—is a statue of a liberated woman discarding her veil. It was erected almost a century ago, and the liberation has held.

The statue of the liberated woman, Baku, Azerbaijan

I spent a week in Azerbaijan and saw only three or four veiled women during my entire stay. Hardly any man there finds unveiled women shocking or scandalous, certainly not enough to cut his own throat over it. There are no more veiled women in Azerbaijan than there are in Seattle. The government, though, isn’t run by totalitarian mullahs. The local Bahais, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians are left alone.

“The main message from the Báb,” Weinberg said, “was that there was about to be a great teacher. Among the Báb’s most prominent followers was a nobleman whose name was Mirza Hussein Ali. His was the son of a courtier in the Shah’s court, and in 1852 he was imprisoned for being a follower of the Báb. He was in an underground dungeon in Tehran, the place where the worst criminals were thrown and left to die. And there he had an extraordinary revelation where he realized he was the one that the Báb had foretold. And for the next forty years, the Báb’s teachings came through him. He was channeling all these ideas about world order, global civilization, equality, the unity of mankind, how to organize human affairs–things to do with personal spirituality, but also justice, social organization, and so on.”

He took the name Bahaullah, which means glory of God. And because of his high rank in the Shah’s court, he was banished rather than executed. He lived in Baghdad for ten years before moving on to Ottoman Turkey and Bulgaria. And in 1868 he was banished to Acre, the now-Israeli city of Akko, and imprisoned there.

“]

[Baha'u'llah was exiled by the Persian and Ottoman empires

Haifa, Israel, with Akko (Acre) in the background

“They kept him in the citadel for two and a half years,” Weinberg said, “but as people started to realize that the Bahai were good, honest, peace-loving people, restrictions on them were lifted and they were free to travel in the area. Bahaullah passed away in 1892.”

Acre, or Akko, is just north of Haifa. The cities are within each others’ sight lines. Bahaullah could see Haifa and Mount Carmel across the bay from the prison, and he traveled there after he was released.

Ottoman-era prison in Akko (Acre), Israel

He wanted Mount Carmel to become the spiritual seat and administrative center for the Bahai Faith, and he wanted the Báb’s remains secretly smuggled out of Persia and buried in a shrine on the side of the mountain. That’s exactly what happened sixty years later, and Mount Carmel has been the center of the Bahai world ever since.

The first building constructed there was for the archives. “It’s a copy of the Parthenon in Athens,” Weinberg said. “The idea was to find an architectural style that would be beautiful for thousands of years. They assumed that since the Parthenon has been considered beautiful for thousands of years, it would likely be considered beautiful for thousands more.”

The Bahai archive building

.

The Bahai archive building

The Bahai Faith is a modern religion with neither clergy nor rituals. It is administered by officials elected every five years. They believe in non-violence and the brotherhood of mankind. You’d have to be a real bastard to be seriously offended by them, and some kind of a fascist to think they deserve to be persecuted.

“The fundamental teaching of the Bahai Faith is that there is one god and that he is completely unknowable,” Weinberg said. “We are limited in our understanding, so throughout our history humanity has been guided by it’s a succession of great teachers. When we look through history we have, every thousand years or so, extraordinary figures like Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Krishna, and so on. They bring a message, they bring teachings, and their teachings become universal and give rise to new civilizations. So there is essentially one religion. There aren’t all these religions in competition with each other for everyone’s soul. There is one religion, and it has been progressively revealed to humanity throughout history through these great teachers.”

If you want to convert, it isn’t difficult.

“If you want to become a Bahai,” he said, “all you’re doing in a sense is making an internal recognition that there is one god, there is one human race, there is really only one religion that has been taught through the ages by different teachers, and that Bahaullah is the latest of these great teachers. There’s no ritual or baptism or anything like that.”

“]

[Interior of the Office of Public Information, Baha'i World Centre, Haifa

“Ever since the time of the Báb,” he said, “the Bahais in Iran have been persecuted.”

“Even under the secular shahs?” I said.

“Less so then, but, yes,” he said. “At different points in history the shahs wanted to appease the mullahs, so from time to time he would allow them to do stuff to the Bahais.”

“‘Stuff’ meaning what, exactly?” I said.

“Their cemeteries were demolished. Gangs were let loose on Bahais in the streets. People were killed. Bahais have always been slandered. Bahai school kids have been told they’re unclean.’

“It sounds like Bahais have been treated worse than Jews in Iran,” I said.

“In Iran,” he said, “I would say so, yes.”

“Is that because Christians and Jews are considered People of the Book by Muslims while Bahais are not?”

“Bahais are also People of the Book,” he said, “because we consider the Bahai revelation following the same line as the Abrahamic faiths.”

“But Bahais aren’t named by Islam as People of the Book,” I said.

“Because we came after the Koran,” he said. “We came after Mohammad. The traditional interpretation says he was the last prophet, that there can’t be any after him. So when the Báb and Bahaullah come along and say they’re being divinely inspired and guided it becomes a big theological issue. Since 1979 it has been the official government policy to blacklist and persecute the Bahais. Over 200 Bahais were executed under Khomeini in the early years after the revolution.”

Iran’s Khomeinists treat everyone badly, even liberal and moderate Shia clerics who refuse to toe the regime line, but only Jews and Bahais are singled out for destruction outside Iran.

“In 1991 the Supreme Leader Khamenei,” Weinberg said, “who is still the supreme leader, commissioned a memorandum which deals with the Bahai question. It says Bahais must be blocked from progressing in careers and social life. Employees who reveal that they’re Bahais should be dismissed from their jobs. School children should be dismissed from schools. Bahais should be banned from universities. They should be kept at the lowest levels of subsistence and earning. And more ominously, it also says Bahais should be rooted out around the world, that their culture should be destroyed. It’s a formal government policy to eliminate every trace of the Bahai Faith and the Bahai community everywhere in the world.”

“Not just in Iran,” I said.

“Not just in Iran,” he said. “This document says the Bahai community should be destroyed around the world. They’ve been trying to enact this policy, and in the early days of the revolution they were executing Bahais and imprisoning them. Bahais were disappearing, never to be seen again. There was a huge outcry. The Bahai Faith has spread all over the world. There are Bahais in every country, and various governments around the world will stand up and speak out for the human rights of the Bahais. There was such an outcry that Iran realized it couldn’t get away with it. So instead they’ve been applying a slow strangulation which is still going on today. Cemeteries are still being destroyed. People are still losing their jobs. Students still are not allowed to study. Bahais are picked up, arrested, and imprisoned, and only released on bail if they put up the deeds to their properties.”

Israel’s relationship with the Bahais could not be more different. Few Bahais live there, but that’s not because of pogroms, state-sponsored repression, or bigoted attitudes from Israelis or Arabs. The Bahais just decided–before the modern Israeli state even existed–not to promote themselves there.

Haifa's German Colony from the Bahai gardens. The shrine of the Báb (lower right) was covered when I was there.

“This goes back to the time of Bahaullah himself,” Weinberg said. “He said the faith shouldn’t be taught in this area.”

“Why is that?” I said.

“I think there’s wisdom in it,” he said and laughed.

“It was a political decision?” I said.

“I can’t speak for Bahaullah,” he said and laughed again.

“You have a lot better sense of what he was thinking than I do,” I said.

Here's a public domain photograph of the Báb's shrine

“He was probably aware of the sensitivity of this land,” he said, “the political factions, religious tensions, and all the rest of it. I think that out of respect and out of safety it was considered the wisest thing to just have our holy places and world center here without making any attempt to teach or promote the faith here. If people want to know about it they can come here. They can see the gardens. They can go on the Internet. They can read books. They can go to the library. But there is no Bahai community as such in Israel. We do, however, have a relationship with the city of Haifa, the municipality. All our buildings and developments are done properly and legally with the city.”

The Bahai center

“Is there any tension?” I said.

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said and laughed a third time. The idea of tension between Bahais and Israelis is a little ridiculous, but I had to ask just to be sure.

“Was there any tension with the British or Ottoman authorities after this place was established?” I said.

“The Bahais were initially prisoners, of course, under the Ottoman authorities,” he said. “Bahaullah’s son was still a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire until the Young Turks revolution set political and religious prisoners free in 1908. Between 1914 and 1918 their lives were in danger because the Ottoman pasha in Palestine threatened to have Bahaullah’s son executed, but the Ottomans were driven out by the British. After the First World War during the British Mandate, Bahaullah’s son knew there was going to be a famine, so he encouraged Bahai landowners around the Galilee to store grain. He fed a lot of people in this area during the First World War, and when the British came in they gave him a knighthood for his service to the people of Palestine. So the Bahai’s relationship with the British was fine. And the Bahai’s relationship with the State of Israel is fine, as well.”

We walked the grounds of the gardens. It’s an extraordinary place, and I said so.

The Bahai gardens from below

“It is very beautiful,” he said. “People ask questions about what’s symbolic, but it’s really just about beauty. It’s about creating a beautiful environment so that the pilgrims who come can prepare themselves for the shrine. The number nine is repeated in some of the designs. In the original Arabic numerology, Baha equals nine, and it means glory.”

The Bahai gardens

I was tempted to ask him what he thought his Israeli hosts should do about the Iranian regime that threatens them both, but it did not seem appropriate.

“We’re not political,” he said. “We don’t get involved with political discussions or disputes. Bahais everywhere in the world obey the laws of the land in which they live, so naturally we’ve never had any problems with the British or the Israelis.”

The Iranian government’s stated goal of destroying the Bahai Faith everywhere in the world is, of course, impossible, but an apocalyptic war with Israel would, conveniently from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s point of view, destroy the holiest sites of both the Jews and the Bahais. I don’t expect anything of the sort will ever actually happen, but it would be a mistake, I believe, to assume that it can’t. A repressive regime with eliminationist ambitions toward even one, let alone two, religious communities would be ferociously dangerous indeed if it possessed the weapons of genocide.

“All of these things are intertwined,” said Shastri Purushotma, the human rights representative for the U.S. Bahai community. “You can’t separate out human rights and the nuclear issue, because the way a country treats his own people is an indication of how they will treat their neighbors.”

******

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Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2010/12/09/iran’s-other-war/

(Wall Street Journal – 17 Dec 2010) Seven former leaders of the Bahai community in Iran are in their first year of a decade of unjust incarceration. They were arrested in mid-2008, held without charge for months and denied proper access to lawyers or regular visitation from their families. When finally charged with outrageously unsubstantiated crimes—especially the capital crime of “spreading corruption on earth”—the seven Bahais categorically denied each offense. They were convicted this past August and their lawyer, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, said that the charges were without “cause or evidence.”

Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm—these … [continue here]

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source: The Wall Street Journal