#Persecution of Baha'is in Iran

[swiftsnowmane]

The Iranian government is using intensified and brutal new tactics to persecute the Baha’i religious minority in Iran, according to a new statement of the Baha’i International Community (BIC) released today, with a view to “robbing” the Baha’is of a “sense of peace and security in their daily lives.”

A troubling range of “new and harsh methods” by the authorities have included violent home raids, an increase in the number of Baha’is both in prison and awaiting their summons to jail, punishing property confiscations, denial of burial rights, denial of higher education, and surging official hate speech against the community.

The new, intensified and increasingly violent incidents of persecution have disproportionately affected women and the elderly, and have resulted in hospitalizations and traumatic separations of mothers from their children.

“The growing volume of attacks on Iran’s Baha’is, which we have observed for over a year, is exceeded only by the brutality of the new tactics that the Iranian government is bringing to bear against the innocent Baha’i community,” said Simin Fahandej, BIC Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. “These tactics speak to a strategy to terrorize the most vulnerable members of the Baha’i community—people who have already faced extreme pressures for their faith—to demoralize not only the Baha’is but all of Iranian society. The new statement details how the government is trying to achieve this; through increasing violence, state-sanctioned theft, and intensified efforts to deny them the right to study, learn, live or even die with dignity. The international community must insist that the Iranian government immediately desist in its policies against the Baha’is.”

Two-thirds of Baha’is detained during the recent raids have been women, many in their twenties and thirties, the statement said, with some being separated from young children by their arrest.

The BIC added that the “crimes” for which these individuals were arrested include providing social services to disadvantaged groups, including Iranian and Afghan children and the victims of a recent earthquake, which “the rest of the world would consider as providing community service.”

Since the beginning of October, 40 Baha’is have been arrested and the homes of close to 100 families have been invaded and searched in cities across the country.

About 70 Baha’is are in detention, or are serving prison terms, and are often subjected to psychological and physical abuse during interrogations. And 1,200 others are either caught in ongoing trials relating to incidents of persecution or have been convicted and await a summons to prison.

Sentencing by the courts has also become increasingly harsh—with tens of Baha’is sentenced to a combined total of hundreds of years in prison in recent weeks. The harsh treatment of Baha’is in prison is even extended to the denial of leave to attend the funerals of their own parents. Baha’is that are granted bail are obliged to post exorbitant sums or surrender property deeds as collateral. A recent example saw a young woman in Shiraz, only in her early twenties, being required to post bail of about US $200,000, a vast sum for any ordinary Iranian.

Violent home raids and searches have been a disturbing feature of the new crackdown, the BIC said. In dozens of cases, masked agents had forced their way into Baha’i homes at gunpoint, searching the premises, confiscating electronic devices, any available cash, jewelry and items of value, as well as work equipment valued at hundreds or thousands of US dollars, and then detaining or arresting the individuals for questioning.

“When security agents invaded the home of a family, the young son objected,” the BIC said in its statement, when listing examples of the raids. “The agents then severely beat the boy in front of his parents and his grandmother, who were powerless to intervene.” In another case, involving the mother of a young family arriving at her residence, the woman was “forcibly thrown inside” her own home by four men who had been waiting for her and who then conducted a search. A separate reported incident also saw a Baha’i man suffer a heart attack after security agents broke into his home and arrested his daughter.

The statement added that, on some occasions, agents broke the windows of homes and broke down doors to gain access. Security cameras had also been trained on the homes of several Baha’is to monitor their activities and visitors.

A series of raids on the homes of elderly and ailing women left several of them traumatized and hospitalized. One of these women suffered a heart attack during the raid and another suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

“How can the Iranian government possibly justify terrorizing some of the most vulnerable members of the Baha’i community such as the elderly, the sick, mothers, young men and women who have already been socially and culturally isolated from society in every way possible through denial of higher education and employment?” added Ms. Fahandej. “What logic is there in taking young mothers away from their children, in some cases for between five and 10 years, when these women have done nothing other than serve the poor and deprived communities? If this is not religiously-motivated persecution, with the single aim of eliminating the Baha’i community and cutting Baha’is off from their faith, then what is?”

University-age Baha’is have, according to the statement, also faced fresh barriers to higher education. Baha’is have been barred from university since the 1979 Islamic Revolution: but now students have been asked to “sign declarations denying the authority of their religious institutions” and thus to recant Baha’i beliefs to be able to attend university.

Increasing numbers of anti-Baha’i statements and claims of immorality had also been made by media outlets linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as the Supreme Leader, the statement said.

And at Baha’i cemeteries in some cities, Iranian officials are attempting to take over the cemeteries and have prevented families from burying loved ones according to Baha’i funeral rites. The BIC statement added that, at the Baha’i cemetery in Tehran, Ministry of Intelligence agents had barred Baha’is from using their own plots and had buried deceased Baha’is in a mass grave of thousands of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

Burying Baha’is there is an attempt to “eliminate the memory of the mass grave,” the statement said, which was “against the expressed wishes of the Baha’i community” out of respect for relatives of those buried at the site.

In the past week, one Baha’i family has even chosen to donate the body of a deceased loved one to scientific research rather than accept the denial of burial rights by the Iranian authorities. The move was a final act on behalf of a woman—the deceased—whose husband was executed in the 1980s for his Baha’i beliefs and whose two sons have spent time in prison.

Baha’is are also now unable to register their marriages, the statement said, because of the introduction of an online registration system. The effect has been to render Baha’i marriages void under the law and this, in turn, has serious implications for any subsequent registrations of births and other social rights.

The BIC’s statement was released after letters by two Baha’i women currently in Evin Prison, Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, were published online. Both women appealed to their compatriots to call on the Iranian government to end its persecution of the Baha’is. “Our story is one,” Ms. Kamalabadi said, with Ms. Sabet saying “My story is yours,” both echoing the BIC’s #OurStoryIsOne campaign. The campaign, launched in June, commemorates the 1983 execution of 10 Baha’i women who gave their lives for equality and justice, principles that are today the desire of many other Iranians.

[theupfish]

The Baha'i faith teaches unity of all the world's religions

Founded in 19th Century Iran, the Baha'i faith built off of the previous three Abrahamic religions. The Baha'i believe that all of the world's major religions have been revealed by the same God.

From Wikipedia's article on the Baha'i faith:

According to Baháʼí teachings, religion is revealed in an orderly and progressive way by a single God through Manifestations of God, who are the founders of major world religions throughout human history; Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad are cited as the most recent of these Manifestations of God before the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh.

Despite their religion's inclusive and progressive nature, the Baha'i people have faced ongoing persecution, particularly in their home nation under the Islamic Republic of Iran. But despite attempts to suppress it, the Baha'i faith is one of the fastest growing religions in the world, as well as one of the most widespread around the globe.

The Baha'i people have an elected leadership for their entire religion, comparable to the Vatican for Catholicism. It's called the Universal House of Justice, and is located in Haifa, Israel; also in Haifa are the Shrine of the Báb, and its famous gardens, also known as the Hanging Gardens of Haifa.

The main symbol of the Baha'i faith is the nine-point star. Others include the five-point star, the Greatest Name, and the Ringstone Symbol. (Link)

[amagi2000]

Scholar Drops Truth Bomb on Ignorant, Protesting Students

Dr. Denis MacEoin was a British academic, scholar and writer with a focus on Persian, Arabic, and Islamic studies. He was an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and was a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly.

The following is an open letter of rebuttal that he wrote to The Edinburgh Student's Association who voted to boycott Israel based on a claim that  Israel is under an apartheid regime.

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel.

That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of. 

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran, the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran ? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa . They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.  On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid.

Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran , where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side.

Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence.

It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,

Denis MacEoin

[no-passaran]

Many members of the Baha'i religious minority have been arrested across Iran in recent weeks amid unabated nationwide protests. Some were detained at their homes while others were rounded up with other protesters in the streets. Like many of the arrested demonstrators, these Baha’is have been locked up behind bars without specific charges and haven’t been allowed to meet with their families. (...)

43 Years of Harassment and Persecution

Members of the Baha’i community are among the most persecuted groups in Iran. From the very first days following the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, they have been violently harassed by the Islamic Republic and its lackeys. The properties and the homes of many Baha’is were confiscated, their cemeteries in all Iranian cities were seized and destroyed, and Baha’i villagers were driven out of their ancestral lands.

The homes and the livestock of many of these villagers were set on fire, and some of the elderly villagers were killed by setting them ablaze. Baha’is were expelled from all government positions, academics were kicked out of educational institutions, and students were banned from higher education.

During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Baha’is served in the military, just like their fellow Iranians. A large number of them were killed, sustained serious injuries or became prisoners of war, but the Islamic Republic has not recognized any of them as “martyr,” POW or war wounded soldier, and their names were removed from the lists of the Martyrs Foundation.

For more than a decade, Baha’is have been banned from leaving Iran and none of them have been given a passport. Over the past 43 years, more than 200 followers of the Baha’i faith have been murdered and executed by the Islamic Republic. Thousands of them have served prison time because of their faith.

During the ongoing protests, security agents of the Islamic Republic have killed a number of children, but for the Baha’is that’s not something new. Forty years ago, on June 18, 1983, Mona Mahmoudnejad, a 16-year-old Baha’i girl, was executed by hanging in the southern city of Shiraz just for refusing to convert to Islam. Babak Talebi and Payman Sobhani are among other Baha’i children who have been murdered in Iran.

Persecuting the Baha’is as a Mean to Silence Protests

Misleading public opinion is one of the methods that the Islamic Republic has consistently used whenever it has been challenged by protests. In the early days of the current wave of demonstrations, the Iranian government once again resorted to this tactic to mislead public opinion and sow divisions among protesters.

In a statement on September 30, the Intelligence Ministry claimed that Baha’is “have had an extensive presence on the scenes of unrest and riots,” using this fallacious excuse to arrest three Baha’i leaders and two members of their communication team.

To back its claim, the Intelligence Ministry created fake Twitter accounts and sent messages bearing the logo of the London-based, Persian-language Iran International TV channel. In these posts, Baha’is were supposedly calling on people to take to the streets on October 14 and 15. (...)

[radfembri]

Iran. Many Iranian women opposed the Shah's autocratic rule and his use of a cruel secret police, SAVAK, which tortured many women who joined underground anti-government guerrilla groups. In 1978, militant Muslim supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini incited massive demonstrations against the Shah. To placate the religious leaders of the revolutionary movement, he banned abortion.

But in 1979, the militants drove him out. Khomeini, who had been propagandizing from exile in Paris, returned to Iran in triumph. In March 1979, 100,00 women gathered at the University of Tehran to celebrate the overthrow of the Shah and the Ayatollah’s victory. But almost at once, Khomeini suspended reformed family laws, barred women from becoming judges, issued his first order on the veil, passed a series of laws to segregate schools, buses, beaches, and other public areas, and established theocratic rule.

Disregarding women's support, the Ayatollah abolished all laws granting women rights and showed no reluctance to kill women who upheld them. He established a ‘morals police’—made up, in a rare exception, of women, called the Zeinab Sisters—to exercise surveillance on women's dress and behavior and harass or arrest them. One of his first acts was to prosecute the first woman member of the Iranian cabinet, Farrokhrou Parsa. Tried by judges in hoods, allowed no defense attorney and no appeal, she was in fact declared guilty before the trial began. Parsa was charged, writes Mahnaz Afhjami, with ‘expansion of prostitution, corruption on earth, and warring against God.’ Her actual offenses were to direct schoolgirls not to veil and to establish a commission to revise textbooks to present a nonsexist image of women. In December 1979, Khomeini had Parsa executed; she was wrapped in a sack and machine-gunned.

Women protested the new rules in massive marches in Teheran and other Iranian cities; men beat, stoned, and even stabbed them as they marched. Men purged women from the public realm, then passed laws severely restricting them from taking jobs and making it almost impossible for them to talk to or deal with men at work. In 1981, Khomeini had fifty schoolgirls shot and thousands of girls and women arrested for ‘counterrevolutionary’ or ‘anti-Islamic’ activity. None were given trials, and reports indicate that 20,000 women, including pregnant women, old women, and young girls, were executed. In 1982, Khomeini set the legal minimum age for execution at ten years (or puberty) for girls and sixteen for boys, banned women from most sports eventsand launched a new campaign of arrest, executing 15,000 people. That same year, he intensified government persecution of religious minorities, especially Jews and Baha'is. In 1983, he made veiling compulsory for women, and had ten women hanged for refusing to convert from Baha'i to Islam: three were teenagers; others included the first Iranian woman physicist, a concert pianist, the former personnel director for Iran Television, and nurse. He recruited children to clear minefields during Iran's war against Iraq; hundreds of thousands were killed.

In 1989, a woman interviewed on a television program said she would rather model herself on a contemporary woman than on Muhammad's daughter, the self-sacrificing Fatima who has been held up as a model for women for thirteen hundred years. Ayatollah Khomeini ordered those responsible for the program arrested and executed. When his advisers assured him the producers had made an innocent mistake, he granted pardons—but by then Iranian women had surely gotten the message.

“The War Against Women,” Marilyn French

[sethshead]

Members of the Baha'i Faith have long been persecuted in Iran, due to the Islamic prohibition on the emergence of new prophets. Accordingly Baha'is in the religion's homeland were murdered for apostasy. When they moved to Ottoman Syria, they were imprisoned in Ako, where the Baháʼu'lláh died.

The Baha'i experienced a reprieve during the secular nationalistic Pahlavi Era, but have again been subject to repression and execution under the Islamic Republic. In the 1980s, among his very many political victims, the "Butcher of Tehran", the late, lamented (by the UN, at any rate) President Ebrahim Raisi, also turned against innocent Baha'is. They were killed for crimes against Islam. Does this Iranian government sound like a place to turn for those who espouse the cause of human rights?

Yet our activists, academics, and NGO administrators have made a hero of Raisi and his hangman's noose.

[spokanefavs]

Pete Haug further explains the religious persecution in Iran of Baha'is.

[michaelgabrill]

Upcoming: H.Res. 744 Condemning the Government of Iran's state-sponsored persecution of its Baha'i minority and its continued violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as amended

H.Res. 744 Condemning the Government of Iran's state-sponsored persecution of its Baha'i minority and its continued violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as amended, sponsored by , is scheduled for a vote by the House of Representatives on the week of November 28th, 2022. https://ift.tt/elATYPd

[tamlins-stories-and-poems]

Adding to a series of eerily familiar events, Bahá'ís in Yemen are still being persecuted for their Faith. We need your help, please, for the love of all things good in the world, condemn these actions. Save my friends. Don't let them be arrested for no reason.

[ayearinfaith]

𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟳𝟵: 𝗕𝗮𝗵𝗮́ʼ𝗶́ Baháʼí is a religion which developed primarily out of Shia Islam in what is now Iran in the late 19th century. Taxonomically, it is an Abrahamic faith, a sister of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, though it holds itself to be part of a grander worldwide tradition of faiths. The word “Baháʼí” became the title of the religion after its primary founder, Baháʼu'lláh, and means “glory” in Arabic. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗮́𝗯 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗮𝗵𝗮́ʼ𝘂'𝗹𝗹𝗮́𝗵 In 1844 a 25-year-old merchant would declare himself a messenger of the singular Abrahamic God and forerunner of the Messiah (a savior figure present to some extent in all Abrahamic faiths). He took the name “Báb”, Arabic for “gate”, as a reference to one of the titles traditionally given to the deputies of the Messiah in Shia Islam. Over the next 6 years the Báb spread his message and accrued a following estimated to be around 100,000 or so across modern-day Iran and Iraq. The Islamic authorities did not take kindly to the rise of what they saw as a heretical faith and, after years of persecution and exile, executed the Báb in 1850. Official records state that his body was left to be eaten by wild animals, though the Baháʼí claim that his remains were secretly smuggled out and now reside at the shrine of the Báb, a Baháʼí pilgrimage site in Haifa, Israel. This did not stop the religious movement, and thirteen years later, in 1863, Baháʼu'lláh made the claim that he was the figure foretold by the Báb. Baháʼu'lláh was a known figure in the religion and had already been influential in developing the doctrine as something distinct from Islam. His claim came with some controversy, though he was not the only person to make it after the Báb’s death. The Báb had given his incomplete writings to Subh-i-Azal, Baháʼu'lláh’s younger half-brother, so that he could complete them. This act was seen by many as a declaration that leadership of the religion fell to Subh-i-Azal. Baháʼu'lláh claimed that, as the foretold manifestation of God, he superseded that claim for leadership. This lead to an internal schism, causing the followers of Baháʼu'lláh to adopt the term “Baháʼí” for themselves, as distinct from other Bábís. Baháʼu'lláh convinced the majority of Baháʼí to his cause, and would further develop core Baháʼí concepts to their, more or less, modern understandings. Baháʼu'lláh passed leadership of the faith to his son, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who would, in turn, pass it to his eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi. Shoghi Effendi is largely responsible for the increased globalization of the religion, translating its texts and building movements beyond Greater Iran and adjacent lands. After him, leadership remained within the Universal House of Justice, an organization of elected officials already founded by Baháʼu'lláh which acts as the source of Baháʼí canon and a center for global Baháʼí organization to this day. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗼𝗻 The core of Baháʼí and ultimate cause of its split with Islam is the concept of the progressive revelation. As a core religious concept, I should note that there is depth to this which I cannot convey in an article this brief, so the following is a severe simplification. The idea is twofold: the first part is that God has not given his truth to the world only once, or even only a few times, but many times over the course of millennia. The second is that each one of these revelations was given in a manner relevant to the people it was given to. Thus, Baháʼí believe that Jesus was a true messenger of God, as was Muhammad, Zoroaster, the Buddha, and others. The difference in their doctrines is that Jesus was given the revelation of God as was needed for first millennia Mediterranean peoples, Buddha the version appropriate for 5th century BCE peoples of Asia, and so on. Each doctrine is the absolute truth of God and, in the eyes of the Baháʼí, contain mostly similar messages. The distinctions between religions are due to the needs and understanding of distinct cultures across space and time. Each revelation builds upon the last and come every 1,000 years, with Baháʼí being the most recent. With this knowledge, Baháʼí see their faith and its beliefs as being very directly relevant and designed around the modern world we live in today, which contrasts to many other faiths who view their principles as eternally relevant. The unity of humanity is a core principle of Baháʼí, which is very specifically anti-racist and anti-colonialist, though in a purely social way as Baháʼí are discouraged from direct engagement in local politics. Other modern religious ideals include the push for worldwide compulsory education, the equality of the sexes, the elimination of wealth inequality, and the use of auxiliary languages for international communication (Baháʼu'lláh himself praised Esperanto). Image Credit: Baha'i Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, taken by Michael Donahue in 2018.

[secular-jew]

An important letter (fact, not opinion) written by Dr. Denis MacEoin, a non-Jewish Scottish professor, senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, and expert in Middle Eastern affairs: 

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain 's great Middle East experts in their day. I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University . Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSAmotion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel . That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of. Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran, the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres. In Israel , women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai's... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence. It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely, Denis MacEoin

[keyvanstories]

My Mom Loves to Visit Our Garden. Nature Lifts her spirit. My mom will be 100 years old the 1st of January 2022. My husband Arsalan has been my best and foremost support in caring for her, specially in recent months when I myself have not been feeling well. This video is Arsalan and my birthday gift to her for her 100th year birthday. My mom was born in the city of Sanandaj in the province of Kordestan Iran in january 1922. Her mother and father were the first in their Jewish family to investigate, recognize and embrace the Baha'i Faith; the New Revelation from God and the fulfillment of the prophecy's of the Holy Scriptures of the past. Their family faced severe persecution by their extended Jewish family and endured much hardship for years. My mom is the oldest child out the 6th children. She served as a Baha'i pioneer for 7 years in Venezuela after leaving Iran as a result of Islamic Revolution in 1979. She learned to speak Spanish in Venezuela and loves to speak  Spanish every chance she gets.She loves to pray every day for all her loved ones. She enjoys reading Baha'i history, watching Baha'i history videos, coloring in her coloring book, watering the plants in the garden, visiting with her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and friends any chance she gets. She takes great joy from the fact that all her children are devoted Baha'is and serve humanity in all corners of the globe.Happy 100th birthday Maman Hamideh

[dr-archeville]

Connecting Rural Orange, Tempers Flare at the Wake School Board, and a Durham Group Wants the County Manager Out

It’s Wednesday, March 10

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Good morning, readers.

Welcome to Wednesday. I hope everyone had a chance to get outside yesterday and enjoy the warm weather. And if you didn't, it looks like you'll have another opportunity to today...and tomorrow. Actually, weather's looking pretty good through Friday and into Saturday, so take the time to enjoy it. I know the pollen (meaning spring!) is coming for us soon.

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Orange County

Tonight, Chapel Hill's Town Council will vote, for the second time, on whether to rezone property located at the 1200 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard. It's complicated but there are around 73 mobile homes located on a parcel where a developer has proposed building a gas station and self-storage facility. If the developer, Stackhouse Properties, gets the rezoning it's requesting, families, mostly Spanish-speaking, who live in the mobile units will be able to keep their homes on the property for the next 15 years at least. If the rezoning isn't approved, Stackhouse says it will have to do something different with the property that will all but certainly displace these homes, likely forcing these low-income residents out of the county, and their children out of one of the nation's top-tier public school systems. (Apologies: my summary of this story yesterday inaccurately characterized the nature of the rezoning to imply that the residents could be displaced if the rezoning is approved again.)

Orange County's Board of Commissioners has established a task force to address the issue of connecting residences in rural parts of the county to broadband. As of 2018, that was about 5,000 homes and the COVID-19 pandemic has only underscored how much people rely on the internet to work, shop, study, and receive services such as healthcare.

But the county faces several challenges. The General Assembly prohibits local governments from forming internet service cooperatives and a lack of vertical assets (tall buildings and billboards, for example) make it difficult for private companies to install fixed equipment for wireless. Other solutions, such as fiber, are expensive to build out.

"I’ve heard the tax issue, and the cost issue," says Earl McKee, an Orange County Commissioner. "‘Can we afford to do this?’ My response is ‘Can we afford not to do it?’"

Durham County

The People's Alliance, a powerful, progressive group in Durham, posted a statement on its website yesterday taking aim at county manager Wendell Davis's employment contract, including his $200,000-plus salary, seven weeks' vacation time, life insurance policy, and "hefty" vehicle allowance. 

"These perks are far in excess of what other public employees receive in Durham and do not represent our values," the letter states.

Davis's contract expires in June. The People's Alliance's letter seems to ask that county leaders not keep Davis on as county manager. Check our website today for more on this story.

Durham has a small population of adherents to the Baha'i faith, including some, like the Mostaghimi sisters, who escaped persecution in Iran following the 1979 revolution.

Wake County

Wake County Public Schools' board met last night to discuss bringing 4th and 5th graders back to school full-time. Things got a little heated but, in sum, 4th and 5th grade students who didn't opt to attend Virtual Academy will return to school, this coming Monday, for full-time, in-person classes following an 8-1 vote. (K-3, pre-K, and special-education students already returned to daily in-person instruction back in February.) Superintendent Cathy Moore will present a plan next week to increase the amount of in-person instruction middle school and high school students will receive. School board member Jim Martin was the lone dissenting voter.

Raleigh's City Council voted last week to allow folks who grow produce in community gardens located within city limits to sell their bounty at neighborhood farm stands. Thanks to local microgreen grower Tami Purdue, and urban agriculture advocate Jenn Peeler Truman, residents can sell crops to their neighbors. City leaders hope the move will help address Raleigh's notorious food deserts.

Elsewhere

Republicans in the General Assembly are still pushing for that schools reopening bill; they're close to a deal with Governor Cooper, who vetoed its last iteration, Senate leaders say.

As with other minority communities, Asian American communities are also dealing with challenges around the COVID vaccine. The first step to understanding these challenges is realizing the community is incredibly diverse, with a national population of over 17 million comprised of more than 50 different races and ethnicities.

Rick Gunn, a former state senator accused of breaking up a marriage following an affair with a legislative staffer, settled with the staffer's husband who sued Gunn for up to $3 million.

There's a North Carolina bill seeking to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit congressional terms for lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate. N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore, a 20-year veteran elected office holder, is a supporter.

The N.C. DMV stopped issuing license plates with the Confederate flag. The N.C. chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is suing the state over it (this is the same crowd involved with the Silent Sam negotiations with the UNC System Board of Governors).

Statewide COVID-19 by the numbers: Tuesday, March 9

997 New lab-confirmed cases (875,903 total; seven-day average trending down)

1,147 Current hospitalizations reported (seven-day average going down; 11,552 total deaths, +17 over Tuesday)

38,961 Completed tests (10.58 million total; most recent positive rate was 5.2 percent)

2,938,543 Total vaccinations administered (State data not updated daily)

Today's weather The spring-like weather continues. It will be mostly sunny and warm with a high in the mid-70s.

Song of the day Doug Tuttle: Falling to Believe Doug Tuttle's soft psych sounds seem like they'd be perfect for a walk on a cool New England morning. He's released four albums since the split of Mmoss, his project with Rachel Neveu, in 2013. They're all great, but the sophomore effort from 2016 resonates most with me and it was hard to pick a single song from it. Thanks to Mark Connor for the song selection!

— Jane Porter— Send me an email | Find me on Twitter

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[spokanefavs]

Pete Haug discusses the religious persecution of two Iranian women who practice the Baha'i faith.

"Mahvash Sabet, 69, and Fariba Kamalabadi, 60, were first incarcerated in 2008 and released in 2018. At the time they were part of an informal group of five men and two women who tended to the basic pastoral needs of the Iranian Baha’i community."