Who Will Speak for Them?



By Kathleen Norris Park

For The Transcript

The Bahá'í community of Norman joins with others in central Oklahoma and thousands of others on every continent to express the strongest concern about the ongoing persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran. Seven members of the Bahá'í Faith, held in Even prison in Tehran since last spring without charge or evidence of wrongdoing - and forbidden access to an attorney - may come to trial within days. The charges now leveled against the seven are “espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic republic.” False charges, according to a message from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the US in Wilmette, Illinois. “These charges are clearly a sham to justify the Iranian government's documented and reprehensible intention to harm not only the Iranian Bahá'í leadership, but the whole of the Iranian community.”

These five men and two women had careers as educator, developmental psychologist, optometrist, and businessmen. Two are parents of children still at home. Several received their education before access to it was denied to Baha'is, that is, since the Islamic Republic came to power in 1979. Several more held government jobs or owned businesses with employees. Those positions have been lost, and in the case of the factory owner, his business confiscated for no other reason than his Bahá'í faith.

Iranian government agencies on every level continue to deprive Bahá'ís of their right to education, property, and the pursuit of their professions. Bahá'í homes and cars are burned, government newspapers run articles against the believers, children and youth are denied entrance to schools or are persecuted by teachers who encourage other children to revile them. Innocent people are arrested and imprisoned without cause or even charges-all for their religion alone.

Members of the Bahá'í Faith are nonviolent and nonpartisan. Bahá'ís believe that God is the Source of all religion, which He reveals through successive Manifestations, or Prophets. They believe that in the mid-1800s God sent another such Manifestation in the person of Bahá'u'lláh, whose teachings of peace and justice they follow. (See http://www.bahai.us/)

“All of the allegations issued in a statement by the Iranian government are utterly baseless,” said Ms. Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá'í International Community to the United Nations, referring to statements made by Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham. “The group of Bahá'ís arrested [in May 2008], like the thousands of Bahá'ís who since 1979 have been killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed, are being persecuted solely because of their religious beliefs. The best proof of this is the fact that, time and again, Bahá'ís have been offered their freedom if they recant their Bahá'í beliefs and convert to Islam - an option few have taken.

“Far from being a threat to state security, the Bahá'í community of Iran has great love for their country and they are deeply committed to its development. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that the vast majority of Bahá'ís have remained in Iran despite intense persecution, the fact that students denied access to education in Iran and forced to study abroad have returned to assist in the development of their country,” Ms Dugal said.

On 30 July, the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington passed Resolution 175 condemning the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran.. This followed the statement a month earlier by six Nobel Peace Prize laureates - organized as the Nobel Women's Initiative, with an office in Ottawa, Canada - calling for the unconditional release of the seven Iranian Baha'is who are members of the coordinating committee. (See http://iran.bahai.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009-hr-175-congressional-resolution.pdf.)

Our State Department has issued “Persecution of Religious Minorities in Iran,” a detailed report that follows at least nine others since 1979 condemning the same oppression.

“We Are Ashamed,” an open letter to the Bahá'í community from a group of academics, writers, artists, journalists and Iranian activists throughout the world, begins “In the name of goodness and beauty, and in the name of humanity and liberty! As Iranian human beings, we are ashamed for what has been perpetrated upon the Bahá'ís in the last century and a half in Iran.” The letter goes on to enumerate the assassinations, disappearances and systematic abuses of Bahá'ís. It ends by asking the Bahá'ís “to forgive us for the wrongs committed against the Bahá'í community of Iran. . . . We will no longer be silent when injustice is visited upon you.”

To date, more than 260 expatriate Iranians have signed. (See www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/06/iran.bahai.apology/index.htm.)

Actor Rainn Wilson (“The Office”) also weighs in with his comments on CNN, “Stop religious persecution in Iran.” (See www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/17/wilson.faith/index.html.)

Whether this public outcry by governments, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, concerned organizations and individuals the world over will have any effect on the Islamic Republic remains to be seen. But people of all faiths and good conscience may remember “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” [attributed to Edmund Burke.]



Kathleen Norris Park is the public information representative of the Bahá'ís of Norman, OK, and a freelance writer-editor.