to maintain any sense of faith in the basic decency of humanity. Not usually, not regularly. But every once in a while, there are dark reminders of just how ugly human beings can choose to be. Sometimes these reminders are small and quickly dealt with, but sometimes they are deep and heavy and leave me in a fog of whispered prayers trying to battle against the bleakness.
I do not use this blog as a platform to discuss my religious views in any depth. Regular readers know I am a Baha'i, but it is certainly not my wish to beat anyone over the head with my own belief system. I feel that our beliefs are reflected in our way of life, and am always open to questions as they arise.
But yesterday, news arrived that fellow in Baha'is in Iran are once again being actively persecuted, and nothing makes me feel quite so ill. For those of you unfamiliar with the Baha'i Faith, its sole aim is the unification of and service to mankind. We are required to be obedient to our government, and actively assist those around us.
Anyway, you can read about it for yourselves. The article and photo are courtesy of Baha'i News Service.
Our thoughts and prayers are with these dear souls, their families, friends and communities.
Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran; pattern matches deadly sweeps of early 1980s 15 May 2008
NEW YORK
— Six Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious
Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes
in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily
rounded up and killed.
The
six men and women, all members of the national-level group that helped
see to the minimum needs of Bahá’ís in Iran, were in their homes
Wednesday morning when government intelligence agents entered and spent
up to five hours searching each home, before taking them away.
The
seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in early
March in Mashhad after being summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence
office there on an ostensibly trivial matter.
“We
protest in the strongest terms the arrests of our fellow Bahá'ís in
Iran,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá’í
International Community to the United Nations. “Their only crime is
their practice of the Bahá’í Faith.”
“Especially
disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls the wholesale arrest or
abduction of the members of two national Iranian Bahá’í governing
councils in the early 1980s -- which led to the disappearance or
execution of 17 individuals,” she said.
“The
early morning raids on the homes of these prominent Bahá’ís were well
coordinated, and it is clear they represent a high-level effort to
strike again at the Bahá’ís and to intimidate the Iranian Bahá’í
community at large,” said Ms. Dugal.
Arrested
yesterday were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr.
Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid
Tizfahm. All live in Tehran. Mrs. Kamalabadi, Mr. Khanjani, and Mr.
Tavakkoli have been previously arrested and then released after periods
ranging from five days to four months.
Arrested
in Mashhad on 5 March 2008 was Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, who also resides in
Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of
Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer
questions related to the burial of an individual in the Bahá’í cemetery
in that city.
On
21 August 1980, all nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of
the Bahá’ís of Iran were abducted and disappeared without a trace. It
is certain that they were killed.
The
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran was reconstituted
soon after that but was again ravaged by the execution of eight of its
members on 27 December 1981.
A
number of members of local Bahá’í governing councils, known as local
Spiritual Assemblies, were also arrested and executed in the early
1980s, before an international outcry forced the government to slow its
execution of Bahá’ís. Since 1979, more than 200 Bahá’ís have been
killed or executed in Iran, although none have been executed since 1998.
In
1983, the government outlawed all formal Bahá’í administrative
institutions and the Iranian Bahá’í community responded by disbanding
its National Spiritual Assembly, which is an elected governing council,
along with some 400 local level elected governing councils. Bahá'ís
throughout Iran also suspended nearly all of their regular
organizational activity.
The
informal national-level coordinating group, known as the Friends, was
established with the knowledge of the government to help cope with the
diverse needs of Iran’s 300,000-member Baháí community, which is the
country’s largest religious minority.