Raising voice to help Baha’is can make difference

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/06/2009 (6266 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IN a world rife with the murder of innocent people, why should we care about seven law-abiding Iranian Baha’is jailed for a year in Evin Prison in Tehran, until recently without charges, and without access to their lawyer, Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi?

Why, indeed.

Daily news of such horrors has inured us. We simply don’t care anymore. It makes no sense to stress about situations over which we have no power. At least that’s how we’ve come to think, and understandably so.

Yet our voices could have made a difference had they been raised in defence of the Jews in Germany, or the Rwandans. So why would the voices of us, the people, not make a difference for these seven “Friends of Iran” or “Yaran,” who, as a consequence of co-ordinating spiritual and community affairs, are now rumoured to have been charged with “spreading corruption in the land.” This same charge resulted in death for some of the more than 200 Baha’is executed in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Violations of the human rights of Baha’is in Iran have increased in intensity since 2005 and the election of President Ahmadinejad, especially in recent months. Baha’is have faced systematic harassment and intimidation including the circulation of lists of Baha’is with instructions to secretly monitor their community events; dawn raids on Baha’i homes; the confiscation of personal property; a dramatic increase in the number of Baha’is arrested; daily incitement to hatred of the Baha’is in all forms of government-sponsored mass media; anti-Baha’i symposia and seminars organized by clerics followed by orchestrated attacks on Baha’i homes and properties; destruction of Baha’i cemeteries; demolition of Baha’i holy places and shrines; acts of arson against Baha’i homes and properties; denial of access to higher education; vilification of Baha’i children at school by their teachers; debarring Baha’is from numerous occupations and businesses; refusal to extend bank loans or to issue or renew business licences; closure of Baha’i shops; harassment of landlords of Baha’i business tenants to force their eviction and threats against Muslims who associate with Baha’is.

In the face of reports that elements inimical to the Baha’i faith have redoubled their efforts to cripple the community in the land of its birth, here in Winnipeg last week there was some good but quiet (for obvious reasons) news: a Winnipeg Baha’i learned that her cousin, imprisoned in an undisclosed Iranian city for the past several months, was released in exchange for the deed to the house, valued at approximately $150,000 Cdn.

So what have we, the people, done lately to protect Iran’s largest religious minority of over 300,000 as well as the seven Baha’is facing grave but totally baseless charges?

A lot!

On March 30, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a strongly worded motion condemning the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran as well as noting that attacks on Baha’is “constitute a number of warning signs that often foreshadow widespread ethnic, racial or religious cleansing.”

And on May 14, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Lawrence Cannon, issued a similar statement, which reads in part, “The government of Canada calls upon the Iranian authorities to immediately release the seven Baha’i prisoners and to cease the harassment of members of the Baha’i faith.”

Nor was Cannon Canada’s first foreign minister to advocate on behalf of the Baha’is in Iran. At the United Nations in May 2008, then foreign minister Maxime Bernier criticized Iran for jailing six of the seven leaders. On a number of occasions when he was minister of foreign affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, now president of the University of Winnipeg, spoke out strongly on their behalf.

Then there is the Feb. 3 open letter addressed to the Baha’is in Iran and signed by 243 Iranian Muslims — intellectuals, scholars, writers, journalists, activists and artists worldwide. It is a letter of apology for their silence during Iran’s long-running persecution of Baha’is that began with the murder of 20,000 of that faith’s earliest followers.

Internationally, a number of governments, international organizations and prominent individuals have reacted to the announcement of a trial for the seven members of the Friends in Iran, including most recently, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

So, why should we speak out about these Baha’is? Because what’s going on in Iran is unjust. Religious freedom is a fundamental right outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as a number of international conventions and treaties.

No price tag, material or otherwise, should be attached to one’s beliefs. And we do have a voice. Raising it in protest might make the difference.

Shar Mitchell, writer, recently returned to Winnipeg after 38 years.

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