Dear Editor:
In the fast moving swirl of world events, the most vulnerable of oppressed people are easily forgotten. However, we would do well to remember “the least of us” and stand up for justice. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere, is injustice everywhere.”
The Baha’i’s, Iran’s largest religious minority of approximately 300,000 adherents, have endured 150 years of persecution. Under the present Iranian administration, they are being disappeared, arrested, interrogated, tortured, murdered, driven from their homes and businesses, deprived of pensions, denied access to higher education, arrested and held without charges or access to council. Today, approximately 32 Baha’is languish in prison and 7 of these, who administered the affairs of the Baha’is, have been incarcerated in the infamous and feared Evin Prison in Tehran for over a year. At this time their trial date has been set for July 11, 2009. Their charges include “spying for Israel and “spreading corruption on earth,” both punishable by execution. It must be noted that Baha’i’s must be obedient to their governments and may not engage in divisive and subversive politics. They are exhorted to strive for unity in all walks of life. The hackneyed charges of spying for Israel or seeking to bring down the government are grossly false and have long been used to scapegoat the Iranian Baha’i community.
Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, 207 Baha’is, including women and youth, have been put to death, and it is feared these 7 leaders may suffer the same fate. Further, they have been denied access to their lawyer, the Nobel Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, herself the victim of intimidation because she offered to defend these prisoners. Their situation remains ominous.
Various governments and governmental organizations such as Canada, Australia, the European Union, and the United Nations have condemned the false charges and imprisonment of these 7 leaders. In the American Congress, 2 resolutions, H. Res. 175 and S. Res. 71 have yet to be passed notwithstanding that freedom of religion is held dear in the moral consciousness of America, a nation upholding freedom of worship for every citizen according to conscience. For those of us who cherish our right to believe and worship as we choose, urging our representatives to sponsor these resolutions would send a clear message to the world that the human rights we hold so dear in the United States are also the God-given rights of our fellows around the world. Please take a step for justice everywhere by contacting your representatives and urging passage of these resolutions: Senator Stabenow http://stabenow.senate.gov; Senator Levin http://levin.senate.gov; Representative Mike Rogers http://mikerogers.house.gov
Dr. Diana Malouf
