Wall Street Journal: Iran's Persecution of the Bahai

By WAHIED WAHDAT-HAGH

For more than two years, seven Bahai leaders have been imprisoned in Iran's notorious Evin Prison in northwestern Tehran. After a series of show trials which concluded on June 14, the so-called Iranian "court" is expected to rule shortly against Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm who stand accused of, amongst other things, "espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic." Although the charges are completely unfounded, all seven could soon face the death penalty.

Several of the advocates for the accused spoke out recently in a rare interview, published in the Deutsche Welle Farsi. Lawyers Mahnas Parakande and Abdollah Soltani stated that there is no evidence that could legitimately support a ruling against the Bahai Seven. Dr. Hadi Ismaelsadeh, a colleague of Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, affirmed that the prosecutors simply "couldn't find any documents which would prove the rightness of these accusations".

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a nation rife with tragic stories of human rights violations and persecution. No case is more severe than that of the Bahai; a faith-based community, entrenched in the modern history of Iran, that is facing a most dire and questionable future.

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Bahai News Service

The Bahai Seven (from left to right): Fariba Kamalabadi, Vahid Tizfahm, Behrouz Tavakkoli (seated), Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie (seated) and Mahvash Sabet.

Founded in the mid-19th century, the Bahai faith aims to promote peace and unity among mankind. They believe in one God, whose will has been revealed on earth by a long line of divine messengers; the Bahai believe these include Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha. Baha'u'llah, an Iranian nobleman and the founder of the Bahai faith, is thought to be the most recent. While the messengers are seen chiefly as the founders of separate religious systems, the Bahai see them as being united by a common purpose—to bring the human race to a spiritual and moral maturity.

The story of this peace-promoting religion is marred by the violence inflicted upon its followers at the hands of the several dynasties and regimes that have ruled Iran over the last 150 years. For example, historian E.G. Browne estimates that nearly 20,000 Babi (as they were then known) were killed in a series of pogroms in the late 1800s. And during the Pahlavi dynasty of the mid 1900s, the Shah frequently backed the anti-Bahai movement in an effort to garner clerical support for his foreign and domestic policies.

The Bahai are seen in the eyes of Iran's current Shiite rulers, installed by the Islamic Revolution of 1979, as little more than a heretical manifestation that refuses to recognize Mohammed as the last prophet. More than 200 Iranian Bahai have been killed since 1979, nearly 1,000 have been arrested, and more face daily economic and religious discrimination.

The treatment of the Bahai by the current clerical government in Iran is more sinister and complex than a basic lack of religious tolerance: It is an organized, and systematic, and well-documented repression aimed at eliminating the community from the annals of Iranian history.

In 1991 for instance, the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council laid out a plan to restrict the education, employment, and cultural status of anyone who identifies publicly as a Bahai, and to block the development of the community as a whole. The plan was endorsed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Other documents include a 2007 letter, sent to police forces throughout Iran, calling for the establishment of a ban on work permits for the Bahai in "sensitive business categories," including the tourism industry, the press, and commerce.

The intention is clear: The Iranian regime seeks to isolate and strangle the Bahai community until its existence is no longer viable.

Iran justifies its systematic persecution of the Bahai through a series of conspiracy theories that recall familiar anti-Semitic themes and are fuelled by the Bahai having chosen Israel for their spiritual and administrative base. The Bahai have been accused of being foreign agents for the Mossad, the KGB, the CIA and MI6 to name but a few. They are held responsible for most immoral behavior in Iran—most notably prostitution and adultery which are capital offences punishable by stoning. And the economic crisis? That's their fault too.

The Iranian government's treatment of the Bahai is perhaps unsurprising when you consider that they preach non-involvement in partisan politics; while Iran is governed by a regime that regularly involves itself in the affairs of its neighbors. While the Bahai seek world peace, by teaching unity and relativity of religious truth, Iran advocates jihad. One goal of the Bahai is to ensure that women have as fully equal opportunities as men; contrast that to the Islamic Republic's forced veiling of females.

This community of 300,000 in a nation of over 70 million has consistently been the target of severe repression, a record that has led a group of Iranian intellectuals to proclaim in an open letter in February 2009: "As Iranian human beings, we are ashamed."

The fate of the Bahai Seven, who now await sentencing, will have implications not just within the Bahai community but for Iranian society as a whole. Failure to defend the rights of the Bahai now will only further empower Iran's totalitarian leadership, and leave the future of the Bahai and of Iranian freedom in even greater doubt, because they are indivisible.

Mr. Wahdat-Hagh, an Iranian-German Bahai, is a senior fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels.

What is a humanitarian crisis?

[note: the following represents the views of the author only, and does not represent the views of other participants on the Seven Blunders of Passive Violence blog]

Over the course of the past few days, I have come to an unhappy conclusion – I no longer understand the meanings of very commonly used words in the English language. For example – victim. Or another – humanitarian. Maybe you can help me out with this one – law.

According to his grandson, Gandhi once identified seven blunders of the world that lead to passive violence – violence that goes largely unnoticed by those that perpetuate its cycle. One of the these blunders, Politics without Principles, is one that resonates with me as I listen to the unending blather about the Freedom Flotilla – that they are responsible for the murder of their own passengers, that they are representative of terror organizations, that Israel was forced into a corner from which they had no escape. I abhor violence in its myriad forms – indiscriminate violence robs the world of souls that were to contribute to humanity in a countless number of ways. However, what I think I feel more deeply is how insidious passive violence is, and how it can be masked and perpetuated by an American society that seems overly obsessed with its own righteousness. How humble are we.

The political rhetoric that has been repeated ad nauseum in the past 24 hours illustrates passive violence at the global scale – a violence that should cause every one of us, as global citizens, to take pause. Countless talking heads have filled my television screen over the past few days, explaining to me, once again, that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and that the 1.5 million people are provisioned with a more than adequate supply of basic resources for survival. I am besieged by the random numbers that are being thrown around by each side. For example, did you know that over 80% of people in Gaza are dependent on humanitarian aid? How about the fact that Israel graciously “lets” 100 trucks per day of aid into the Strip? At what age do you call a child a combatant deserving of death? The mind-numbing list goes on, and we come no closer to an understanding of the humanitarian crisis that sits before each and every one of us.

It is this quibbling that makes clear to me just how much of a crisis this situation has become – that we set numerical boundaries, draw arbitrary lines, and delineate acceptable percentages when we are talking about fellow humans only illustrates how much of our own humanity we have lost. That anyone can openly and proudly proclaim that they provide or slightly exceed minimal standards of human existence is only trumped by our willingness to say “good job.”

We’d like to look at Israel and its relationship with Palestinians as a conflict so rooted in ideology and history that it is unending - but we are lying to ourselves so that we are not forced to look at our own complicity in perpetuating a conflict that, let’s be honest now, most of us could really care less about. We are members of the global political realm, we are one of the leading world economies, we take no shame in dictating terms of living for much of the world, and yet, in the end, we participate in the system without truly standing up for the principle that trumps all others – the value of human life…each life.

We should be outraged – we should be outraged at how Gazans are forced to live in what most international observers call an open-air prison. Come to think of it, we should also be outraged at the seemingly unstoppable cycle of violence that rips through the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We should be outraged at the countless other number of conflicts throughout the world that we contribute to each day – mainly through our silence. What we should be most outraged by, however, is that when we sit silent, we don’t even seem to mind the loss of our own humanity that accompanies such an action. Bit by bit, others suffer so that we can build a case why someone else is to blame.

Forgiveness

"To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.

However, when I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person."

Desmond Tutu

(more)

TRANSCEND-USA Conference Workshop with Dr. Johan Galtung hosted by UNC Greensboro Conflict Studies and Dispute Resolution Program May 21-22, 2010

Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism.

'Rethinking Prosperity' is topic for panel at United Nations
12 May 2010

NEW YORK — Professor Tim Jackson doesn't hold back when describing today's consumer culture:
"We are encouraged to spend money we don't have, on things we don't need, to create impressions that don't last, on people we don't care about."

Professor Jackson, a member of the Sustainable Development Commission of the United Kingdom, made his comments at a panel discussion held this week in conjunction with the current session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

The Baha'i International Community cosponsored the discussion, titled "Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism." (click link to statement)

Countries are being driven further into debt – not to mention potential environmental catastrophe – by levels of consumerism that do not contribute to sustainability, Professor Jackson said.

The answer, the panelists proposed, is to reconsider the nature of the consumer culture that relentlessly urges people to adopt a lifestyle based on the acquisition of new and more material goods.... (read on)

Questionnaire by Wendell Berry

“Questionnaire”
(a poem by Wendell Berry)

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

Wendell Berry

"When we feel we possess the truth, we shut our minds and live in ignorance."

"Gandhi was moved to say: "A friendly study of all the scriptures is the sacred duty of every individual." He emphasized "friendly" studies, as opposed to critical ones, which frequently dwell on the differences between scriptures. When we stop dwelling on where our faiths diverge and focus instead on the similarities, we will find that religion is like climbing a mountain. If we are all attempting to scale the same peak, why should it matter which side of the mountain we choose to climb?

Religion, Gandhi believed, must unite and civilize human beings and not divide people and turn them into savages. At the root of many of our spiritual problems today is the strong belief that each of us "possess" the truth. No one "possesses" the truth. We can only "pursue" the truth with all sincerity and diligence. There is a vast chasm that separates these two concepts. When we feel we possess the truth, we shut our minds and live in ignorance. This leads to disrespect for others, discrimination, oppression and aggression. If, on the other hand, we are committed to pursuing the truth, our minds are open, accepting, respectful, and welcoming.

Gandhi perceived the culture of violence as the root of all contemporary evil. He saw violence in many forms, not just the physical violence that concerns us today. Violence exists in all aspects of human life--spiritual violence and exploitation, economic violence, social violence, cultural violence, political violence, educational violence, and much more."

-Arun Gandhi, One God, Many Images

Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) website