doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

I missed out on posting something on the United Nations Human Rights Day (Dec. 10th), but figured I’d give at least a peep to show that a) I’m not dead and b) I care about human rights issues. I have at least one other human rights post in draft, but it’s not done yet :P

I’ve been listening to some talks by Member of the Universal House of Justice Paul Lample lately, in which he speaks about the degeneration of language—and how, instead of representing or describing reality, language has come to be used to manipulate reality. He used the term “human rights” as an example. For example (to paraphrase), one nation (Nation A) may speak out in a global forum, decrying the violation of human rights in a certain other nation, and demanding redress or international condemnation. Said other nation (Nation B) could very well snap back and, instead of addressing the allegations leveled against it, decry the human rights abuses occurring in the accusing nation—since there are generally some form of human rights abuses occurring in every nation on earth at any given time—and demand that international condemnation be focused on the accuser rather than the accused. Remind you of anyone?

Human rights are not subjective; they’re very clearly and specifically laid out in such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The problem in the above case would seem to be that, since there are human rights violations occurring at some level in all parts of the world at any given time, Nation B may feel entitled to reframe Nation A’s allegations of Nation B’s human rights abuses as hypocritical and unjust. In debating terms, this is known as ad hominem tu quoque, or the “you too” fallacy—changing the subject of debate by accusing one’s opponent of hypocrisy, thereby ignoring the original question.

Human rights is a question of justice, and goodness knows there’s not much of that to go around nowadays—although I feel we can safely say that some places have a little more to go around than others. Let’s just say that a nation whose government goes around today bulldozing cemeteries and systematically targeting the members of particular sections of its population for arbitrary arrest, detainment, property seizure, unwarranted expulsion from employment and from educational institutions, denial of pensions, harrassment and execution, isn’t a place you would go to find shining examples of the respect of human rights. and it’s always informative—and sobering—to read up on what human rights groups worldwide have to say about such places. If only we could put ad hominems aside for a day or two and face reality…

After a “nail-bitingly tense” vote on a no-action motion (NAM) tabled by Iran—which failed by 1 vote—the UN’s Third Committee finally approved a resolution condemning the human rights situation in Iran. Thanks to Barney for the heads up and for some insightful commentary on the issue.

NEW YORK—A committee of the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution today expressing “deep concern” about “ongoing systematic violations of human rights” in Iran.

Put forward by Canada and co-sponsored by 41 other countries, the resolution took note of repression and persecution aimed by the Iranian government at groups ranging from women and women’s rights defenders to the news media and labor groups, as well as various ethnic and religious minorities, including Iranian Baha’is.

The resolution passed the General Assembly’s Third Committee by a vote of 72 to 50 with 55 abstentions on 20 November 2007. The vote essentially assures passage of the resolution in a final vote by the entire Assembly scheduled for December.

Its passage followed a call by Iran for “no action” on the motion, a vote that itself failed by 78 to 79, with 24 abstentions. That vote, also taken today, was seen as an important test of the General Assembly’s will to examine human rights issues in specific countries when warranted.

“We are pleased that the General Assembly did not shy away from its responsibility to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, as identified in the U.N. Charter,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations.

Read the whole story.

This is a lamentably late post—along with all the others I’ve posted recently—but this one makes me so angry I couldn’t bear not to share it. Not content with the relentless (yet increasingly secretive) persecution of living Baha’is, Iranian authorities are sinking to desecrating the graves of those Baha’is who have passed away. Barnabas Quotidianus carries commentary about the bulldozing of Baha’i cemeteries in Iran—an insane, barbaric and callous act of malice. To quote the post’s author, Barney Leith, “[t]he destruction of the Baha’i cemetery in Najafabad is clearly part of a systematic campaign by the Iranian authorities to intimidate, persecute and destroy the Baha’i community in the land of its birth.” With the help of Youtube, we can see the destruction up close.

Update: The following video offers a voice-over and before-and-after video from the Najafabad cemetery, making its destruction all the more chilling.

The Muslim Network on Baha’i Rights also features this video, as well as additional photos of the cemetery’s destruction.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to America was newsworthy enough to make the front page of local, national and international news everywhere. You may have heard about his remarks to the American National Press Corps—in which he completely ignored a question posed to him about Iran’s Baha’is— or his talk at Columbia University and “public skewering” by Columbia president Lee Bollinger. Then, in a galling display of duplicity, Ahmadinejad delivered the following non-answer to a direct question about the persecution of Iran’s Baha’is at a United Nations press conference on September 25:

I doubt Ahmadinejad would ever read this blog, but just for the record:

1. The name of the religion mentioned is the Baha’i Faith.
2. The name of its divine prophet is Baha’u’llah.
3. He first revealed His mission to mankind in 1863.
4. You’re welcome.

Also blogged at Baha’i Faith in Egypt and Barnabas Quotidianus.

Once again, Iran’s campaign of persecution towards its Baha’i minority finds its way into the halls of academe; one more year in a row, prospective Baha’i students have been barred from applying for higher education. No, there are no armed guards keeping them from the examination halls; just a row of boxes on paper. Here’s the story from the Baha’i World News Service:

NEW YORK, 31 July 2007 (BWNS) — Iranian Baha’is seeking to enter Iran’s technical and vocational institutes have been effectively barred from admission for the coming academic year, since the application to sit for the entrance examinations leaves them with no option but to deny their faith, which Baha’is refuse to be coerced into doing.

The Baha’i International Community learned recently that the 2007 form for the entrance examination for undergraduate courses under the technical and vocational education system indicates that only one box may be marked for religion.

The applicant is given three choices - Zoroastrian, Jewish, or Christian - and if none of the boxes is marked, the form explains, the applicant will be considered Muslim. This is unacceptable to Baha’is.

“Under this system, Baha’is cannot fill out the application without a de facto denial of their faith, which is against their religious principles,” said Bani Dugal, the Baha’i International Community’s principal representative to the United Nations.

“Accordingly, Iranian Baha’is will not be able to take this entrance examination, and so they are effectively blocked this year from obtaining technical and vocational education in Iran.

Read the whole article.

As noted on Barney Leith’s blog Barnabas Quotidianus—and passed along by countless email groups so far—the fledgling Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights has been featured on BBC Persian (Farsi; check out the English translation). This is well-deserved good news for this collection of brave souls who are selflessly striving to defend the interests of the members of a beleaguered and long-suffering religious community.

For the first time on the internet, a group of Muslim youth has established a site called “the Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights.” This site closely monitors the conditions of Baha’is in Egypt and Iran.

That a group of Muslims—made up social activists and liberal students from Arab countries—has exposed the plight of Baha’is is seen as a significant development by human rights advocates. […]

The founder of “the Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights” believes that most people in the Arab world know very little about the Baha’is: “When I talk to my friends about the Baha’i faith, they tell me that it is a satanic religion. I ask them to provide me with one of the principles of this religion, but they have no answer. Some think that the Baha’is are a sect of Shi’i Islam which is also a mistake. They don’t know anything about it, but they are nonetheless suspicious of its followers.”

In a remarkable and laudable display of interfaith solidarity, Muslim bloggers and interfaith activists have banded together to create The Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights, a website supporting the right of Baha’is across the world to freedom of religious practice, and expressing their concern at the treatment of Baha’is throughout the Middle East. Recent blog posts have examined the worrying situation of the Baha’is of Egypt and the Baha’is of Iran. You should definitely give the website a visit—and if you’re interested in the subject of interfaith blogging, you should also discover the Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network, which covers interfaith issues throughout the Middle East.

Egypt, a country with a long and glorious history dating back to the beginnings of civilization, has been in a very poor state of late, especially with respect to the treatment of its own citizens. Remember last December, when the Egyptian Supreme Court denied Egyptian Baha’is their fundamental citizenship rights by refusing to allow them official ID cards with the mandatory “Religion” field correctly filled out? Well, things just went downhill from there. Hard-hitting Baha’i blog Baha’i Faith in Egypt reports on an Egyptian newspaper interview with Dr. Basma Moussa, an Egyptian Baha’i, who, among other things, discussed the fact that Egyptian Baha’is must pay taxes like any other Egyptian citizen—but are nevertheless deprived of the civil rights granted to other tax-paying citizens. From the blog post:

There must be separation between citizenship and belief—they cannot be interconnected. Each Egyptian citizen must be entitled to ALL citizenship rights. Presently, all Egyptian Bahá’ís are deprived of their citizenship rights simply because of their belief. They are denied government-issued ID cards which are a necessity in order to continue to live in Egypt as a human being. Nothing in normal daily living can be accomplished without these ID cards. […]

In Egypt, it appears to be perfectly acceptable for the government to force the Bahá’ís to pay taxes like all other citizens, but seems to have no hesitation in depriving them of all their civil rights and all services due to them. The authorities cannot demand taxation from Bahá’ís with nothing in return. Is there any justice in this? This fact alone raises a very big question! One would expect that ID cards (and the national ID number) must be used in order to pay taxes!

This atrocious (not to mention ridiculous) treatment of Egypt’s own law-abiding citizens is all the more poignant in light of the news that appeared today about Egypt’s election to the United Nations Human Rights Council. From the Toronto Star:

Despite abuse, Egypt joins rights council: History of torture in African nation makes a mockery of UN, critics say
Olivia Ward, Foreign Affairs Writer

In Egypt, Canadian bank teller Mohamed el-Attar is facing 15 years in jail on spy charges he says he confessed to under torture. Human rights groups say prisoner abuse is routine in the North African country.

In New York yesterday, Egypt won an uncontested seat on the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council, which is meant to defend the rights of the vulnerable worldwide.

What part of this equation doesn’t compute?

“Things like this leave one worried that all the fine things said last year when the council was created aren’t being played out in practice,” says Alex Neve, who heads Amnesty International’s Canadian office.

More than a dozen human rights groups asked the 192-country General Assembly not to vote for Egypt in yesterday’s election to fill 14 seats on the Geneva-based council, charging that the country’s record “is full of serious human rights violations that have been practised widely for long years.”

They named torture, arbitrary detention, election rigging and the use of military courts for trying civilians as reasons not to back Cairo’s bid.

Critics cite Egypt’s win—along with Qatar and Angola, with similarly dubious human rights records—as a sign that the council, created last year to replace the politically charged UN Human Rights Commission which had become known as “the abuser’s club,” is already irrelevant.

read more… »

When will enough be enough? That’s what this latest news regarding the Baha’is of Iran makes me wonder. Iran seems quite intent on destroying its Baha’i community, while offering to the international community cowardly denials of wrongdoing; will it take a Holocaust for the world to sit up and take notice? The latest reports of persecution against the Baha’is of Iran, brought to light by the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations included reports of the widespread harassment and abuse of Baha’i schoolchildren by their teachers and school administrators (thanks to Barney Leith for the link). Many cases of harassment reported so far have been targeted at girls. Harassment has ranged from insult and ridicule, to pressure to convert to Islam, to beatings and physical abuse.

As someone who serves (however humbly) as a Baha’i children’s class teacher, it seems to me to be particularly shameful and reprehensible that the very people who are tasked with the responsibility to nurture, educate and provide for the material and spiritual development of a new generation of children, choose instead to subvert their trust, exploit their weakness, and effectively stunt the growth of those who depend on them to help them “grow and develop, and appear in the utmost beauty”.

From the Baha’i World News Service article:

Baha’i students in primary and secondary schools throughout Iran are increasingly being harassed, vilified, and held up to abuse, according to recent reports from inside the country.

During a 30-day period from mid-January to mid-February, some 150 incidents of insults, mistreatment, and even physical violence by school authorities against Baha’i students were reported as occurring in at least 10 Iranian cities.

“These new reports that the most vulnerable members of the Iranian Baha’i community — children and junior youth — are being harassed, degraded, and, in at least one case, blindfolded and beaten, is an extremely disturbing development,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations.

“The increasing number of such incidents suggests a serious and shameful escalation in the ongoing persecution of Iranian Baha’is,” said Ms. Dugal. “The fact that school-aged children are being targeted by those who should rightfully hold their trust — teachers and school administrators — only makes this latest trend even more ominous.”

I encourage you to read more, and to Digg the story.

N.B.: Vous trouverez une traduction française de cet article sur le site web des Baha’is de France: Les enfants bahá’ís harcelés à l’école en Iran

So the news is making the rounds: despite what Iran’s international representatives may say, Baha’is are persecuted in Iran—and it starts from all the way at the top.

On the heels of a recent press release denouncing the expulsions of Baha’i students from Iranian universities, the Baha’i World News Service (BWNS) offers proof of the existence of a systematic campaign to deny Baha’is the right to higher education. This in itself is nothing new—according to the Baha’i International Community’s website Closed Doors: Iran’s Campaign to Deny Higher Education to Baha’is, such systematic denial of education goes at least all the way back to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. So why is it newsworthy today?

Until very recently, entrance exams for Iranian universities contained a mandatory “Religion” field. Baha’is who attempted to submit their exams were automatically rejected. After 25 years of being barred from any sort of access to university education, a change in government policy—dropping the infamous “Religion” field—allowed hundreds of hopeful Baha’is to take university entrance examinations this year. A sudden sharp rise in expulsions of Baha’i students followed, however—giving rise to the suspicion that the “change” in government policy was simply a ploy to appease fierce international protest. Today, this suspicion is looking more and more justified. Iranian Baha’is who seek higher education are being sent through a revolving door—and are being forced out the way they came in.

Official character of Baha’i expulsions in Iranian university revealed

NEW YORK, 7 March 2007 (BWNS) — The Baha’i International Community has obtained a document that appears to confirm double-dealing by Iran in its policy towards Baha’i students seeking higher education.

The document, a 2 November 2006 letter from the headquarters of Payame Noor University to its regional branches, states that it is government policy that Baha’i students “cannot enroll” in Iranian universities and that if they are already enrolled, “they should be expelled.”

“This document provides proof of Iran’s duplicitous behavior regarding Iranian Baha’i students,” said Bani Dugal, the Baha’i International Community’s principal representative to the United Nations.

“In its public face, Iran claims that it has finally opened the doors to Baha’i students, after some 25 years of keeping them out of public and private universities in Iran,” said Ms. Dugal.

“But, as evidenced by this confidential memorandum from the Payame Noor central office, the real policy is apparently to simply expel Baha’is as soon as they can be identified.”

Read the whole story.

amazing video here, sent over by a fellow baha’i blogger. it’s a news feature from 20/20, back in 1980—during the peak of the persecutions of Baha’is of Iran. even more amazing when you think about how little has changed in 27 years… find the video on google video. thanks Marco for the link.

Warning: The following video contains graphic imagery, which may upset certain viewers.

A new baha’i blog focusing on the plight of Iran’s Bahá’ís has recently seen the light—perhaps following in the footsteps of the successful blog Baha’i Faith in Egypt—and it seems poised to be a promising source of information on the situation of the Bahá’ís of Iran.

The most recent post features a Bahá’í World News Service press release that announces the release of a recent report from the Connecticut-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) on the situation of Iran’s Bahá’ís. The 60-page report expresses concern that Iranian Bahá’ís “may soon face another cycle of repression and violence”. You can read the original press release.

Also of interest may be a photo that appeared on iranian.com and was blogged on the portuguese Baha’i blog Povo de Bahá a few days ago. The photo shows an anti-Baha’i display set up outside a mosque in Iran. My Persian’s getting better, but it’s still too rusty to understand what’s written on the signs.
From the website: The book stand in front of the mosque has a green banner reading: offering books for Recognition of the “Devious Baha’i sect”. I’m assuming this means they’re offering books that misrepresent the Baha’i Faith and passing them off as Baha’i scripture.