Rose el-Yousef, one of Egypt’s leading newspapers, has a story about the report commissioned by the country’s Supreme Administrative Court about Egypt’s Baha’is.

As Bilo comments in his blog:

It is not surprising that this clearly biased and one-sided report repeats the exact same illogical and unjustified statements and conclusions that have been circulating among the Egyptian fundamentalist establishment for many years.

In brief, it concluded that since the Baha’i Faith is not recognized in Egypt as a “divine religion,” therefore its followers in that land have no rights whatsoever and that they simply do not exist! Consequently, they concluded that Egypt’s Constitutional guarantees of freedom of belief and religion do not apply to the Baha’is. That Egypt is not bound to its commitment as a cosignatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and that the Baha’is, in Egypt, should not be under its protection–since, as far as they are concerned, Egypt should have no obligations towards them! That the Baha’i are apostates (whether or not they descended from an Islamic background). That they are a threat to the “general [public] order” of the State, and that all their marriages are null and void…. That “methods must be defined that would insure that Baha’is are identified, confronted and singled out so that they could be watched carefully, isolated and monitored in order to protect the rest of the population as well as Islam from their danger, influence and their teachings.”

It’s well worth reading Bilo’s blog if you want to understand the human rights abuses that are being meted out to the followers of the Baha’i Faith in one of the world’s major Islamic countries.

The travesty of this report is that it identifies the Baha’is as a threat to the nation, isolates them in a corner, deprives them from every right to citizenship, strips them from all their civil rights, calls for their elimination and expulsion, declares their children as illegitimate and their men and women as cohabiting out-of-wedlock….

Technorati Tags: Egypt, Baha’i, human rights, Islam

I just loved this video on YouTube - music and free hugs. It’s very simple and emotional.

Later…
I love hugs - both the giving and the receiving thereof, as an expression of love. However, I know that not everyone likes to hug their friends or be hugged by them. If I sense that someone is a non-hugger, I respect their preferences. For example, my dear father-in-law is a non-hugger, as is a friend alongside whom I serve on the UK National Spiritual Assembly. I shake hands with them, although my instinct would be to hug.

On the other hand, I dislike it if someone I’ve just met for the first time pulls me into a hug against my will. I don’t want those I don’t know well to assume a degree of familiarity that doesn’t exist.

So I’m not sure how I would respond to an invitation to free hugs on the street or in the mall.

Anyway, there’s a nice huggy picture on doberman pizza.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, hugs