Disturbing news was just received from Kerman, Iran. A summary of the report:

Mihran Shakir and his family are Baha’is and live in Kerman. For some time, Mrs. Shakir had been receiving threatening phone calls (presumably for being members of the Baha’i community). When the family attended the commemorative meeting on the night of Baha’u'llah’s Ascension, their car parked on the street was firebombed. Fortunately, the friends at the gathering had noticed the fire and quickly put it out by a fire extinguisher. The car was not damaged very much.

But during the early hours of Friday, July 18, the Shakir’s home was burned completely and arson is suspected. It so happened that the Shakirs had left for the weekend and no one was home or injured by this incident. The report notes that at 4 in the morning, one of the neighbors was disturbed by smoke and had immediately telephoned the fire department. By 5 am the fire engines arrived, had extinguished the fire and began an investigation. Soon it was learned that one of the neighbors had heard a soft expulsion about 3:30 am, but had not thought much about it. Someone else had also noticed suspicious activities on the roof. The investigators believe the fire started in the living room and initially thought it occurred because of problems with the electrical wiring. However, that appears unlikely since the fire had generated a heat so intense that it had bent thick iron bars used in the ceilings. All the furniture and interior of the house were either completely destroyed or seriously damaged.

Pictures of this horrific incident:

Baha’is in Egypt and Iran are being denied their right to education. Why? Simply because of their faith. On the Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights, we have written about the discrimination that Egyptian Baha’is have been receiving, which right now is comparable to what Iran has been putting its Baha’i students through for decades.

Inspired by these human rights abuses we have created a comic to raise awareness on the absurdity of this crisis. Why do I call it a crisis? Because this is intellectual abuse. Baha’i youth are being victims of intellectual starvation, they are unable to acquire an education which is their given right as citizens. They are being isolated and humiliated on a daily basis. These governments, instead of protecting them, are denying them the chance to learn, which means that they are robbing them of their dreams, of having a career, a future, a life.

Don’t all children deserve an education no matter who they are? The Egyptian and Iranian authorities have no right to treat the Baha’is so differently.

This comic should make you laugh first. And then it should make you think. It’s available in four languages so far: Arabic, Farsi (below), French, and English (below).

In Farsi:

On 31 January 2008, the security authorities in Hamadan, Iran, went to the homes of Kamran Aqdasi and his mother and searched both residences for Baha’i materials. They confiscated all Baha’i-related documents and books. Mr. Aqdasi was arrested and imprisoned for eight days, but then released and allowed to return home pending his trial. On 3 April 2008, he was sentenced to a year in prison.

Mr. Aqdasi appealed this verdict to a higher court, but on 21 April the ruling of the previous court was upheld. The verdict was then appealed to Iran’s Supreme Court and the case was fast-tracked. However later the file was put on back-logs and will not come up for a minimum of six months. He began serving his sentence on June 19.

You may read the documents in Persian here.

In the wake of the illegal arrests of 6 Baha’i leaders, Grand Ayatollah Hoseynali Montazeri, a founding father of the Islamic Republic of Iran, proclaimed that while the Baha’i faith is not recognized in the constitution, adherents to the faith have the right of full citizenship.

The news was met with much enthusiasm by Baha’is not only in Iran - the land where the faith was born - but throughout the world.

A comment posted in the Radio Zamaneh website (Persian) attributed a further clarification to the Ayatollah.

‘Right of Citizenship’ is a general term, and its limits should be defined according to public customs and the constitution of which the majority are approving. However, if any person is trying to be the enemy of country’s people, or cooperate with external enemies [of the nation] and their cooperation is proved in a credible court, they must be punished. And their citizenship is not a barrier to the law being enforced. And attention should be paid so as the youth do not get trapped by their malicious propaganda; and if doing business or having companionship with them works as a mean strengthening their position, it should be avoided.

The full text of the translated response can be read here.

Imagine an Iran where Baha’is are free to practise their faith. Imagine an Iran where Baha’is proudly proclaim their identity, without fear of retribution. Imagine an Iran where the National Spiritual Assembly is an active entity in leading the country towards progress. Imagine an Iran where the government actively seeks to protect Baha’i cemeteries and holy sites, and make necessary renovations.

We have a dream that one day in Shiraz, a city with a black history of persecution, little Baha’i boys and Baha’i girls will be able to join hands with little Muslim boys and Muslim girls as sisters and brothers.

Driven by that dream, our media team has created an ingenious satirical video, imagining a world where Ahmedinejad announces a dramatic shift in Iran’s oppressive policies.

On the 27th of June, 1980, Bahar Tahzib’s father was executed in Iran for no other than being a Baha’i. This wasn’t an isolated incident, but a part of a wide and systemic crackdown on the country’s peaceful Baha’i community in the wake of the Islamic Revolution.

Tahzib’s family finds itself once again reliving the horror, as her uncle Jamaloddin Khanjani was arrested along with six other leaders of the community, with no access to lawyers or due process.

The tragedy of Iran’s obsessive witch-hunt against its largest non-Muslim religious minority is that the Baha’is cherish an abiding love for their country and have remained there – despite intense persecution – because they wish to contribute to its progress and prosperity. Iran is their homeland, and as the cradle of their faith and others, they extol it as a sacred land. Their steadfastness in the face of oppression, and the evidence of their goodwill towards their countrymen is gaining increasing recognition amongst ever greater numbers of Iranians at home and abroad. Muslim campaigners are openly calling for the Iranian government to respect the human rights of its Baha’i population

Read more here

“Quenching The Light” is a powerful video that documents the ongoing persecution of the Baha’i minority in Iran. I recommend everyone to watch this and pass it along in order to spread awareness.

In 1983, the ABC news network also featured an exclusive program on the persecution of Baha’is, which we translated into Arabic so more people can know about this in the region and you may find the video here.

Sadly, you can see that not much of this has changed.

But it will. We need to work with each other in order to ensure that.

Censeo, a platform that hosts comics in an effort to “re-examine truth”, recently featured a comic that touches upon the plight of Baha’is in Iran.

 Throughout the years, Bahai’s have suffered through and endured the hurling of baseless charges at them. This gross abuse against their human rights is intolerable and must be brought to an end!

The situation of the Baha’i community in Iran is critical, as expressed in this urgent message from the Freedom to Believe Foundation:

Statement on Critical Situation of the Baha’i Community in Iran

The week of May 12th has been one of great importance to the international Baha’i Community. Friends from countries and territories all over the world have been distressed by the suffering of their human family in Myammar and China. The tragedies there have compelled us all to lament the condition of humanity, not just because of the havoc and human destruction from nature, but mostly because of our frailties in not being able to protect our fellow world citizens from the limitations of ideologies and practices that prevent us from helping those who are in the greatest need. This is the greatest tragedy, when we want to help one another, and we’re not allowed.

This is also the case in Iran. Our community feels powerless to help those who were arrested this past week with out just cause or having committed any crime. These men and women join thousands of Bahai’s in Iran who have been imprisoned, tortured and executed over the course of the last century strictly because of their beliefs. And what is their crime? They are world citizens who have a sane loyalty to their country and the desire to see their country thrive and prosper. They appreciate the contributions to civilization that Persia and Persians have made over the course of human history and are proud of their culture and people.

Because of their faith, they don’t participate in party politics and they hold steadfast to their convictions that all peoples should have the right to their conscience. They believe that ultimately the human race is one family, that we are guided and protected by one God, the Founder of all the great religions of humanity, who has taught all of us to respect one another, to appreciate diversity of belief and to love one another.

To hear of more arrests this week was both discouraging and profoundly sad. It reminded the Baha’i Community of the most recent pogroms in Iran in the 1980’s where the IRI arrested thousands, carried out a merciless campaign to execute the leadership of the Baha’i Community in Iran (executing over 200 Baha’i’s) and threw Bahai’s out of their jobs, their schools, defining them as non-citizens of the country they love. The Islamic Republic also destroyed Holy Places and cemeteries as if to obliterate every trace of the Baha’I Faith in the land of It’s birth. It has been described by some in the international community as cultural genocide but at it’s heart, it is a campaign to eradicate this community which represents the largest religious minority in Iran, numbering close to half a million people.

The Freedom to Believe Foundation has been organized in North America and many countries to come in order to combat this fanaticism and try to encourage understanding of every human being’s right to hold their own heartfelt convictions without fear of intimidation. The first project of the Foundation is to produce a feature length movie about ten women teenagers to grandmothers, who were executed in Shiraz, Iran by the government in 1983 for their beliefs. They were arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the authorities for nine months and finally hanged before dawn on June 18th, 1983. The youngest of them was a 17 year old girl, Mona Mahmudnizhad, who refused to recant her beliefs and the movie is based on her story and will be called “Mona’s Dream”. Shohreh Agdashloo, Oscar-nominated actress for “House of Sand and Fog” will play Mona’s mother in the film and Mona’s role will be played by Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar -nominated actress for “Whale Rider”.

The goal of the Foundation and the film will be to create awareness of these injustices and help support people of all faiths and no faith to be protected when their conscience is violated. Please join us in helping to make these ideas become successful on the world stage.

You may contact this foundation via phone at 1-813-770-0870 or e-mail at freedomtobelievefoundation@gmail.com

Please protest in any way that you can before the situation worsens. It is important for us to stick together regardless of our different faith or nationalities in order to help release these innocent individuals!

On Wednesday morning, May 14th 2008, six Baha’i leaders were arrested in Iran, comparable to the “episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed.” (More on this here.)

“All seven Bahá’ís who form a group that sees to the needs of the Bahá’í community of Iran have been arrested, six of them in early-morning raids on 14 May 2008 at their homes in Tehran.”

We as Muslims strongly condemn this grave injustice which continues to occur in our name. Our religion does not promote these crimes nor does it justify it, and it is imperative that we stand up against this and voice our regret and concerns as well as share our support with the harmless Baha’i minority who have suffered such abuse for decades in Iran with their situation only worsening. To our Baha’i friends, our unconditional support, heart, and thoughts remains with you.

You may read some comments concerning this here. Please voice your support.