Tehran @ MindSay


 

   
Support Iran in their quest for a democracy!
I didn't know anything about the elections in Iran before yesterday. The only thing I really knew was that #iranelection and #cnnfail were trending topics on Twitter. I checked out the #cnnfail page, but it was about the Iran election, which I knew nothing about, so I left it alone. Then I saw this video on Youtube: Iran Election Fraud: 5 Reasons to Doubt the Results 

I decided to check out the links provided in the sidebar of this video, and was taken to a list of people in Iran twittering about exactly what was going on as they saw it. I was reading people's firsthand accounts of a revolution of sorts; their excitement for the upcoming elections, their outrage as their candidate lost in a "landslide" win, their decision to finally do something about it. Since then, I have been hooked on the issue. 

I soon figured out what the tag #cnnfail was in reference to. People were shocked that CNN (and really all of the other major news sources in the US) weren't giving Iran the coverage it deserved. I decided I wanted to see if I could find it anywhere on television myself. I know the BBC usually gives the best news, but that wasn't on my DirectTV channel list, so I looked at BBC America. It had some random TV show. Then, I checked MSNBC, the channel I like to go to for my news. They were running a show about the stock market for the next two hours. I checked CNN, and finally found something, but I suspect only because of the Twitter #cnnfail fiasco. (My suspect was right, it seems...Rick Sanchez did a segment on how people were saying CNN's coverage was bad, and went through the weekend posting bits they had used to prove they had covered it.)

Twitter has become the outlet for the people of Iran to let the rest of the world know what is going on, and for the rest of the world to find out what is going on. Essentially, it is the website of this revolution. I have been so amazed at the support coming from all corners of the globe. There are people in other countries trying to find ways to help Iranians get around the internet blocks the Iranian government has put into place, people "going green for Iran" with their profile pictures, retweeting things said by Iranian people (using "from Iran" instead of usernames to protect identities), changing their time zones and locations in an attempt to keep the Iranian tweeters safe from the government finding them, and simply offering words of support and encouragement. Twitter itself even postponed site maintenance so that the site wouldn't be down during the daytime in Iran. I tweeted this earlier, and I really mean it: It is truly amazing to see so many people from so many backgrounds come together through the internet to help one another. 

It gives me hope for humanity, my generation, and the future of the world, to see so many people around the world supporting the people of Iran. What they are doing is truly inspiring. And it will pay off. America was the result of a revolution, after all. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Well, the oppressed are demanding...it's only a matter of time.
 
 
   
 

Baha'i Adults and Youth Still Imprisoned in Iran after OVER A YEAR!

A bleak future for Baha'is

Moojan Momen

Published 13 May 2009

International pressure may have set Roxana Saberi free, but the plight of seven Iranian Baha'is, imprisoned in Tehran a year ago, has gone largely unnoticed.

Earlier this week, US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi was freed from prison in Iran after having her sentence for "spying" reduced. The charge, which she strongly denied, sparked international attention and calls for her release, which has now been widely welcomed.

But Ms Saberi leaves behind her many other inmates in Tehran's notorious Evin prison whose “crimes” against the Iranian state are also open to question.

Thursday (14 May) marks the first anniversary of the arrest and detention of seven prominent members of the Baha'i faith, Iran's largest non-Muslim religious minority.

The five men and two women made up an informal national committee, serving the needs of the country's 300,000 strong Baha'i community in the absence of formal Baha'i institutions, which are outlawed. Their committee – which had operated with the full knowledge of the authorities – along with all local ad hoc Baha'i administrations – was disbanded in March this year in a gesture of good will from the peaceful and law-abiding Baha'is to their government.

In the one year since their incarceration, the seven detainees have faced no charges nor have they been allowed access to their legal counsel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr Shirin Ebadi. They have faced spurious accusations of "espionage for Israel", and "insulting religious sanctities".

Iran’s prosecutor-general, Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, has asserted that there is evidence that the seven have been involved in "intelligence-gathering" and "infiltration", thus more or less declaring their guilt before any trial date has been announced. The evidence he refers to has yet to be disclosed to the public or produced in a court of law.

In recent days, however, a report from the Baha'i's UN office indicates that another charge is being levelled against the seven prisoners; that of “spreading corruption on earth.”

To the Western reader, such an accusation may seem to be a confusing or even nebulous basis for criminal charges. But in theocratic Iran it has a basis in the penal code and leaves the accused in an extremely vulnerable position.

The term, found in the Koran, has increasingly been used within Islamic legal practice to brand any undesirable "offender": Muslims considered to be too lax in their practices; those who are considered socially evil, such as drug-traffickers and prostitutes; or those with whom the authorities have a fundamental theological disagreement, such as the Baha’is.

Vague as these charges may be, they still have the potential to lead the accused to the executioner.

The allegations against the Baha'is are as nonsensical as they are unjust. The accusations play to the fears of certain areas of the Iranian population about enemies - internal and external - conspiring to undermine the country.

Iran remains a state with a great sense of its own historic legacy and with a clear goal of attaining a mantle of regional leadership - of both moral, as well as political, dimensions.

For the seven Baha'is being held in the grim confines of their Evin cells, their best hope for release might lie in a public protest as widespread as the one that led to the freeing of Roxana Saberi.

Such an outcry may help Iran’s leaders to reflect that imprisoning and persecuting the innocent is not in their national interest.

Moojan Momen is an Iranian author and academic, and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society

SOURCE: http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/05/roxana-saberi-baha-iran-tehran


 
 
 

   
Rainn Wilson(Dwight Schrute on NBC's THE OFFICE)'s

Commentary: Stop religious persecution in Iran


By Rainn Wilson
Special to CNN
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Editor's note: Actor Rainn Wilson plays paper salesman Dwight Schrute in the television comedy "The Office."

Rainn Wilson says fellow members of his Bahai faith are being persecuted in Iran.

Rainn Wilson says fellow members of his Baha'i faith are being persecuted in Iran.

(CNN) -- Why is Rainn Wilson, "Dwight" on "The Office," writing a news commentary for CNN? Good question.

It's a bit strange for me, to say the least; a comic character actor best known for playing weirdos with bad haircuts getting all serious to talk about the persecution of the fellow members of his religious faith.

Dear readers of CNN, I assure you that what I'm writing about is no joking matter or some hoax perpetrated by a paper-sellin', bear-fearin', Battlestar-Galactica obsessed beet farmer.

I am a member of the Baha'i faith. What is that, you ask? Well, long story short, it's an independent world religion that began in the mid-1800s in Iran. Baha'is believe that there is only one God and therefore only one religion.

All of the world's divine teachers (Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, Abraham, Krishna, etc.) bring essentially the same message -- one of unity, love and knowledge of God or the divine.

This constantly updated faith of God, Baha'is believe, has been refreshed for this day and age by our founder, Baha'u'llah. There. Nutshell version.

Now, as I mentioned, this all happened in Iran, and needless to say the Muslim authorities did not like the Baha'is very much, accusing them of heresy and apostasy. Tens of thousands were killed in the early years of the faith, and the persecutions have continued off and on for the past 150 years.

Why write about all this now? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see there's a 'trial' going on very soon for seven Baha'i national leaders in Iran.

They've been accused of all manner of things including being "spies for Israel," "insulting religious sanctities" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic."

They've been held for a year in Evin Prison in Tehran without any access to their lawyer (the Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi) and with zero evidence of any of these charges.

When a similar thing happened in 1980, the national leadership of the Iranian Baha'i community disappeared. And this was repeated again in 1981.

In fact, since 1979, more than 200 Baha'is have been killed, holy places and cemeteries desecrated, homes burned, civil rights taken away and secret lists compiled of Baha'is (and even Muslims who associate with them) by government agencies.

It's bad right now for all the peace-loving Baha'is in Iran who want only to practice their religion and follow their beliefs. It's especially bad for these seven. Here's a link to their bios. They're teachers, and engineers, and optometrists and social workers just like us.

This thought has become kind of a cliché', but we take our rights for granted here in America. Imagine if a group of people were rounded up and imprisoned and then disappeared not for anything they'd done, but because they wanted to worship differently than the majority.

There is a resolution on the situation of the Baha'is in Iran being sent to Congress. Please ask your representatives to support it. And ask them to speak out about this terrible situation.

Thanks for reading. Now back to bears, paper and beets!

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rainn Wilson.
SOURCE:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/17/wilson.faith/index.html
 
 
   
 

Six Baha'is Arrested in Iran, lives in danger
The latest, unfortunately sad news from the Baha'i World News Service.  In reading it we can find solace, though, that from every crisis in the history of the Baha'i Faith has ultimately always come a victory!

Six Bahá'í leaders arrested in Iran; pattern matches deadly sweeps of early 1980s

15 May 2008

— 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

 
 
 

   
FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVEN

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

 
 
   
 

 
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