Bilo’s blog, Baha’i Faith in Egypt and Iran, reports that Bahá’í children in Egypt are being turned away from school, even though Egypt’s administrative court recognized the right of Bahá’ís to have ID cards back in January.

According to this story in Daily News Egypt:

Adel Ramadan, a lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) — which brought the case that was ruled on in January — says that schools are refusing to accept personal identity documents printed on paper…

According to a report published in Arabic-language daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, school officials claim that they cannot accept identity papers in which the religious affiliation field is left blank.

Ramadan says that the decision was taken in pursuance of the state’s policy of forcing people to issue the new computerized identity papers, but has the effect of discriminating against Bahais who either hold the old paper identity documents or have not been issued new documents following the Interior Ministry’s failure to implement the Administrative Court’s decision.

I very strongly agree with Bilo’s closing comment about this outrage:

This sad development must be seen by all Egyptians as a disgrace. Identity cards or not, these children belong in the schools, not the streets. How can a civil society tolerate such atrocities directed at innocent children? Unfortunately this is the exact same strategy that has been pursued in Iran against its children. Is this what Egypt–a nation endowed with so much great heritage–wants to be remembered for? One would certainly doubt that!

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Egypt, human rights, education, ID cards

The Khaleej Times reports that the Iranian parliament is about to debate a draft bill which would make certain blogging activities punishable by death.

MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to “toughen punishment for harming mental security in society,” the ISNA news agency said.

The text lists a wide range of crimes such rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty is already applicable. The crime of apostasy (the act of leaving a religion, in this case Islam) is also already punishable by death.

However, the draft bill also includes “establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy”, which is a new addition to crimes punishable by death.

Those convicted of these crimes “should be punished as “mohareb’ (enemy of God) and “corrupt on the earth’,” the text says.

Under Iranian law the standard punishments for these two crimes are “hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile.”

The bill — which is yet to be debated by lawmakers — also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases “cannot be commuted, suspended or changed”.

I certainly don’t approve of promoting corruption or prostitution, but a great deal turns on how the Iranian judiciary interpret “corruption”. And our old friend “apostasy” - already featuring in a draft penal code under consideration by the Iranian parliament - would attract a mandatory death sentence.

Now what the law says and how judges make use of the law are not always straightforwardly related in Iran, and laws worded in this way would almost certainly be used against Iranian Bahá’ís, since any attempt to inform people about the Bahá’í Faith can be interpreted as promoting “apostasy”.

Hat tip: Mideast Youth for blogging this story.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, blogs, apostasy, death penalty, human rights

Birth of the National Health Service

I can’t think why I’ve only just realized that I was born before the National Health Service came into being. Now, that may not strike non-UK readers as important, but those of us who’ve lived with and been treated by the NHS most or all of our lives are very happy that this extraordinary social institution is still with us after 60 years.

I was born in December 1947. My parents would have had to pay the hospital where I was born for its services. Now our medical treatment is free at the point of use.

The NHS was conceived in the middle of the Second World War, when Britain was almost on its economic knees. Before this visionary new service was born - on 5 July 1948, at a time of extraordinary privation for the British people - people who could afford it (including my parents) paid for medical treatment, and those who couldn’t afford it went without.

Women queuing for food in the severe winter of 1947

Despite all the NHS’s faults and weaknesses, I am grateful for the vision of William Beveridge and the determination Aneurin Bevan, health minister in the 1945 Labour government to ensure that…

…everybody, irrespective of means, age, sex or occupation shall have equal opportunity to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.

Of course, the NHS has never fully lived up to this promise, but as a retired GP who qualified as a doctor on the day the NHS began has commented:

Nobody realised how much unknown sickness there was until the NHS began. So many people just could not afford to go to the doctor. The new service uncovered a huge cavern of unmet need. There was an unprecedented rush to the GPs with problems people had been putting off for years. Before the NHS, healthcare in this country was a disaster, particularly if you were poor.

If you want to read the history of this great social invention, you can download Sixty Years of the National Health Service from the Department of Health website.

Celebration in Westminster Abbey

So around 2,000 of us - doctors, nurses, chaplains, patients, administrators, and many more - came to Westminster Abbey yesterday afternoon - to celebrate the NHS’s 60th birthday.

Prince Charles was there. The Prime Minister was there. And I was there, oh yes, I was there representing the UK Bahá’í community (I am one of two Bahá’í members of the Multi Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy), and sitting next to Sikh, Muslim and Jewish friends.

Westminster Abbey has a grand way with these ceremonial occasions - processions, robes, choir, music, solemn language - and yesterday’s service was no exception.

(I was part of the small “other faiths” procession. It’s an awe-inspiring experience to follow a verger at the stately processional pace favoured by the Church of England through the Nave and into the Quire of this place where God has been worshipped by Christians for over a thousand years - although this particular building was begun in 1245 - watched by the congregation, who surely must have wondered at this motley group of besuited and unrobed men, one in a turban and one with a Jewish kippah.)

Reasons to be thankful

In his address the Rt Revd Michael Perham, Bishop of Gloucester and Chairman of the Hospital Chaplaincies Council, highlighted four reasons to be thankful on this occasion:

The first is that the National Health Service happened at all. It was a brave and visionary social revolution emerging, surprisingly, out of a world of post-war austerity. It was opposed by most of the professionals who would have to work within it. Its background was economic hardship and entrenched opposition. Yet it came into being, promoted by courageous politicians, and it was not very long before it was the pride and joy of the nation and the envy of the world. Give thanks!

The second is that it has continued to evolve, responding to radical change - not so much radical change imposed by politicians and administrators (though, of course, there has been that), but radical change brought about by medical advance and by new insights within the medical profession…

The third reason to rejoice is the huge satisfaction and pride that the people of this country still have in the Health Service. Politicians, challenging one another, rightly always want to get it better. Newspapers sometimes run horror stories of things that go wrong. Some people have a raw deal. This week’s BBC poll on the NHS found that 82% of people were still proud of the NHS and half of those still saw it as the envy of the world. I’d give a lot for a vote of confidence like that. Give thanks!

The fourth reason to celebrate? Simply this - and it’s hugely important. The Health Service work-force deserves honour and praise. Health care “professional” - I use the word in its widest meaning, doctors of many kinds, nurses of many kinds, administrators of many kinds, support workers of many kinds, chaplains of many faiths - continue to be people of dedication, continue to exercise care and compassion towards their patients. “Honour physicians for their services . . the skill of physicians makes them distinguished,” says the writer of Ecclesiasticus, and we need to widen that honouring of those who care for the sick and work for health to include the entire profession. For the people of the NHS, give thanks!

However,

That profound sense of thankfulness needs to be set against the inevitable difficulties that have been encountered as the NHS has tried to respond to change over the years. Nor will the difficulties vanish away, however much we try to anticipate change.

What of the future?

Bishop Michael’s conclusion contains wise words:

There is much that a future NHS will need that is beyond the knowledge of a bishop! There is probably much that is beyond the imagination of most of us. Our forebears in 1948, for all their vision, cannot have pictured the advances and the changes that we have seen. But I think I do know that, if the National Health Service is to continue to serve, it will need to hold on to two timeless truths.

• The human person is a wonderful combination of the physical, the mental, the social and the spiritual, a divine design beyond compare.

• To heal the sick and to make people healthy is a vocation, a collaboration with the God from whom all health and wholeness comes.

Reception

So, the service finished and we all ceremoniously recessed to the Great West Door. Outside in the Sanctuary, the Abbey bells rang through the light, persistent, rain. The congregation hoisted their umbrellas and trooped across the road into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre for sandwiches, scones, tea, a speech by Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Health.

And for a song by soprano Lesley Garrett, who is married to a GP.

When he launched the NHS, Nye Bevan said:

We shall never have all we need. Expectations will always exceed capacity… The NHS must always be changing, growing and improving. It must always appear inadequate.

No wonder Lesley Garrett sang “To Dream the Impossible Dream”!

Technorati Tags: NHS, National Health Service, Westminster Abbey, 60th anniversary, Christian, Baha’i, Sikh, Muslim, chaplaincy

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite