Tehran @ MindSay 
Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran; pattern matches deadly sweeps of early 1980s
15 May 2008NEW YORK — Six Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed.
The six men and women, all members of the national-level group that helped see to the minimum needs of Bahá’ís in Iran, were in their homes Wednesday morning when government intelligence agents entered and spent up to five hours searching each home, before taking them away.
The seventh member of the national coordinating group was arrested in early March in Mashhad after being summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence office there on an ostensibly trivial matter.
“We protest in the strongest terms the arrests of our fellow Bahá'ís in Iran,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations. “Their only crime is their practice of the Bahá’í Faith.”
“Especially disturbing is how this latest sweep recalls the wholesale arrest or abduction of the members of two national Iranian Bahá’í governing councils in the early 1980s -- which led to the disappearance or execution of 17 individuals,” she said.
“The early morning raids on the homes of these prominent Bahá’ís were well coordinated, and it is clear they represent a high-level effort to strike again at the Bahá’ís and to intimidate the Iranian Bahá’í community at large,” said Ms. Dugal.
Arrested yesterday were: Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm. All live in Tehran. Mrs. Kamalabadi, Mr. Khanjani, and Mr. Tavakkoli have been previously arrested and then released after periods ranging from five days to four months.
Arrested in Mashhad on 5 March 2008 was Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, who also resides in Tehran. Mrs. Sabet was summoned to Mashhad by the Ministry of Intelligence, ostensibly on the grounds that she was required to answer questions related to the burial of an individual in the Bahá’í cemetery in that city.
On 21 August 1980, all nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran were abducted and disappeared without a trace. It is certain that they were killed.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran was reconstituted soon after that but was again ravaged by the execution of eight of its members on 27 December 1981.
A number of members of local Bahá’í governing councils, known as local Spiritual Assemblies, were also arrested and executed in the early 1980s, before an international outcry forced the government to slow its execution of Bahá’ís. Since 1979, more than 200 Bahá’ís have been killed or executed in Iran, although none have been executed since 1998.
In 1983, the government outlawed all formal Bahá’í administrative institutions and the Iranian Bahá’í community responded by disbanding its National Spiritual Assembly, which is an elected governing council, along with some 400 local level elected governing councils. Bahá'ís throughout Iran also suspended nearly all of their regular organizational activity.
The informal national-level coordinating group, known as the Friends, was established with the knowledge of the government to help cope with the diverse needs of Iran’s 300,000-member Baháí community, which is the country’s largest religious minority.
Article Source: http://news.bahai.org/story/632
Glad to see love is still at the top for Mindsay tags.
Do read http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4753976 article "Mysterious Connections that Link Us Together" by by Azar Nafisi, an elegant Iranian masterpiece of humanity.
Her article reminded me of the herioc Iranian woman I worked with when we taught at another university on the other side of the globe. While we traveled with a group of students to learn more about a topic of interest we were studying at the time, she sang us Iranian songs in a fabulously trained voice and told us of the challenges she and her family endured at the same time that Azar Nafisi may have been dealing with similar difficulties.
My friend also lost her employment at the University of Tehran when women were expelled. She is a lesson in goodness, displaying warmth and love for those of different cultures, even citing a time in Canada when she met with Iraq citizens (Iran and Iraq had heated disputes at that time, with some problems with peace between states). They were so happy to see another of similar interests, yet separated from their homeland region of the world. My friend awarded us all a degree in humanity that evening.
As Azar Nafisi quoted Huck Finn when he "imagines Jim ...as a human being and he decides that, 'alright, then, I'll go to hell.'" Certainly, the definition of Hell changed that day for Jim and for Huck.
It seems a lot like the story of the man who saw a vision of Hell, with people of all races, religions, political stripes and cultures sitting in a gloriously decorated banquet hall, in large circle about a table brimming with culinary delights, yet these people were starving! They were taunted constantly by the rich aroma of nourishment always ready for the taking, but could only look upon their feast as they were forced to use a spoon with a handle too long to reach their plate or their mouth.
The same man then saw Heaven, with a similar large banquet hall with people of all races, religions, political stripes and cultures sitting around a large circular table. Not surprisingly, they were all well fed and enjoying a fine meal even at that time. These people ate, laughed, and ate again as they enjoyed enlightening conversation. But upon closer observation, these people had the exact same spoon of those relegated to Hell. It was too long to reach their plate or their mouth, but these souls blessed their neighbor as they found it easy to feed the one sitting next to them.
I have seen the same vision of heaven by packing an extra sandwich for the lost one living on the street or taking a meal to a sick neighbor. I have noticed one woman quietly work for a decade to organize others, then prepare and deliver meals to a homeless shelter in our area. You can know heaven, too, simply by finding the long handled spoon that is within your reach.
Thank you NPR and Azar Nafisi for reminding us that heaven is close. It is just a concept away.