Posts from — September 2008

I’m glad to report that the EU Presidency issued an unequivocal statement on Friday calling for the immediate release of Bahá’í and Christian Prisoners in Iran.

Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on the situation of people belonging to religious minorities in Iran

The European Union is very concerned at the deterioration in the exercise of freedom of religion or belief, and especially the freedom of worship, in Iran, where the pressure on people belonging to religious minorities has worsened in recent months.

The European Union is deeply disturbed by the arrests since April of Iranian converts to Christianity and members of the Baha’i community. It calls for their immediate and unconditional release and the cessation of all forms of violence and discrimination against them.

This is good. It keeps the matter on the international agenda, but it is unlikely that Iran will actually release the prisoners (at least, not in response to the statement).

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Christians, Iran, religious freedom, minorities, persecution, human rights, EU

Regular readers will recall that I cried “shame” in this post at the “dialogue” dinner that some of the churches were holding for Iran’s President Ahmadinejad in New York. I wondered how these church leaders thought it appropriate to “dialogue” with the persecutor of all kinds of minorities in Iran - including the largest non-Muslim religious minority, the Bahá’ís - and asked:

How come these New York “diners with the devil” are not prepared to speak truth to power and to tell Ahmadinejad that Iran’s denial of freedom of thought, conscience and religion to its citizens is utterly unacceptable?

One reader emailed me and said she thought I should have waited for the outcome of the dialogue before making a judgement about it. Well, perhaps I should have waited. Perhaps.

Commitment to religious freedom

Dr Bill Vendley, Executive Director of Religions for Peace, one of the sponsoring bodies for the iftar dinner and dialogue, mentioned the Bahá’ís in his introductory remarks at the dinner, according to a Religions for Peace press release. In speaking of the core convictions of Religions for Peace, this is what he is reported to have said:

The commitment to honor the God-given dignity of every person and the commitment to work for the related inalienable rights for all. For us, the rights of freedom of religious belief and practice are central and apply equally to all believers:  whether they be the followers of indigenous religions, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahá’ís or others. Our diverse cultural heritages must be respected, and there should be no exceptions when it comes to states affording full legal rights to all believers. We deplore any government’s laws or practices that penalize and threaten the freedoms of belief and practice. Belief is a matter of conscience before God, and States must provide the legal protection to practice and change one’s religion according to conscience.

Strong language - will it do the trick?

That’s good strong stuff, and I’m very glad that he said it. He did “speak truth to power” (which I feared no one would do). But - and forgive me for being sceptical (I refuse to own up to being cynical) - I don’t suppose that this will have made the slightest difference to Ahmadinejad’s views or his determination to remove the Bahá’ís from the face of the earth.

Ahmadinejad, the Hidden Imam and the Bahá’í Faith

If you want to understand why Bill Vendley’s words will make not a jot of difference to Ahmadinejad, you should read (and please read it thoroughly), this excellent analysis by Mohebat Ahdiyyih in Middle East Quarterly, of Ahmadinejad’s messianism (his Mahdism to be more accurate), his devotion to the return Shi’ism’s Hidden Imam (also known as the Mahdi, the Enlightened One) and why this entails the destruction of the Bahá’í community.

I intend to take a closer look at Dr Ahdiyyih’s analysis in another post.

The failure of dialogue

I have witnessed the failure of dialogue.

The much vaunted EU-Iran human rights dialogue that was going to resolve Iran’s human rights problems some years ago ran into the sand. Over successive meetings with British government officials who had started out full of enthusiasm for the dialogue I saw them become more and more morose about it, until they abandoned any belief in this process.

Why? Because the Iranians ran rings around them, played them along, but refused to discuss a number of substantive human rights issues, including their persecution of the Bahá’ís. And this was in the days of that supposed reformer, Mohammed Khatami.

And I have personally participated in a Christian-Muslim “dialogue” session with Mr Khatami, hosted in Lambeth Palace by the Archbishop of Canterbury and chaired by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali.

Speeches were made. Khatami spoke fine words about “dialogue between civilizations”, but nothing resembling dialogue took place. when I questioned Khatmi about the treatment of the Bahá’ís in Iran, he obfuscated. In fact, a Shi’i scholar based in London chipped in first and told me that no one liked the Bahá’ís and the Bahá’ís would just have to get used to it.

So much for unconditional “dialogue”.

Reward and punishment

The Bahá’í sacred writings are explicit in saying that justice (which is a matter of giving everyone his just desserts) depends on two things: reward and punishment.

Dialogue which has no foundation in justice - which is just a way of continuing to get your own way without suffering the consequences for evil - is not real dialogue. I was admonished by one Church of England official for having ruined the day with Khatami, who had, allegedly, refused to fulfil the rest of the day’s engagements. My fault, apparently.

I raised this accusation with one of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s close advisers. His reaction was rather different. How can we have dialogue, he asked, if we cannot talk honestly about things such as the persecution of religious minorities and other human rights abuses?

I don’t think we should reward the commission of evil with pretend “dialogues” that allow the perpetrators to continue their egregious behaviour.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, Ahmadinejad, Khatami, human rights, persecution, dialogue, Religions for Peace. WCRP, justice, Mahdi, Hidden Imam, Islam, Shia, Shi’ism

St Mary's parish church, Welwyn

While I was waiting for my prescription to be filled at my local pharmacy, I wandered the streets and took some photos with my trusty mobile phone of the old Hertfordshire coaching village of Welwyn, formerly a stopping place for stage coaches on the Great North Road - notorious for highwaymen such as Dick Turpin - from London to York and Edinburgh.

The Rose and Crown, one of six pubs in Welwyn

The Wellington, a good village eatery

Looking up Church Street, Welwyn

Old coaching inn? The archway could have been used by stage coaches

And Bridge Cottage is where I go to the doctors and get my prescriptions. I should stress that the doctors and the medical treatment are not at all ivy-hung!

Bridge Cottage Surgery, Welwyn

All photos © 2008 John Barnabas Leith

Technorati Tags: England, Hertfordshire, Welwyn, Great North Road

This sweet film is a short story, simply told, about compassion and generosity of spirit expressed in an unexpected way by an unlikely person.

Go on, watch it, you know you want to!

[Hat-tip: Vida Stendardo.]

Technorati Tags: film, blindness, generosity, compassion, story, begging

Princes Street, Edinburgh

Yesterday’s treat was a flying visit to Edinburgh to launch the Bahá’í Religious Education Agency (Scotland) on behalf of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the UK.

Up at 5.30 a.m., and drove to Luton airport by 7.30 a.m. for my budget flight to Scotland’s capital city, where I arrived at 10.30 a.m.

Baha’i Religious Education Agency

I met with the three members of BREA (Scotland) at the Edinburgh Bahá’í Centre, briefed them about their terms of reference, and consulted with them about their work plan.

Religious Education in Scotland is undergoing something of a renaissance and it is a good time to be putting the case for the inclusion of the Bahá’í Faith in Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. As things stand, Christianity is still seen as the “sitting tenant” in Scotland, as it were, and other “world religions” will be included in the RE syllabus alongside it.

Children in Scottish schools are to learn not just about the religions but from the religions too. Religious and Moral Education should give them opportunities to consider who they, what their values are and what their values might be.

The members of BREA (Scotland) are three enthusiastic women with experience in education and in public life. I know that they will do a good job.

Edinburgh wander

So the meeting finished sooner than I had expected and I was free to wander. I chose to head along Waterloo Place and to take the steep stair up to the top of Calton Hill on this very gloomy day.

Regent Bridge, Waterloo Place

An Edinburgh tenement building seen from Regent Bridge

City Observatory on the top of Calton Hill

Looking north towards Leith from Calton Hill

The National Monument on Calton Hill (also known as Edinburgh's Shame)

The Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse - Arthur's Seat in the background

Monument to philosopher David Hume in the Old Calton Cemetery

Old cemetery on Calton Hill

Edinburgh is a wonderful city for wandering around in. It has all sorts of nooks and corners, particularly away from the main tourist beat. It has a fascinating history and I found some of that history in the old cemetery on Calton Hill. Philosophers, worthies, rebellious characters and ordinary folk are jumbled together in this fascinating place with its classical style monuments.

More gloomy photos

You can find more of my photos (taken with my mobile phone - I’d forgotten my camera) of a gloomy Edinburgh here.

Home again

By 8.30 p.m. I was home again in the south of England, having had a great day and plonked a great carbon footprint in the atmosphere.

All photos © 2008 John Barnabas Leith

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Edinburgh, religious education, RE, Calton Hill, David Hume

A new Bahá’í blog has appeared on the scene. According to its own blurb

The Daily Bahá’í provides the opportunity to pause and reflect once a day on a concept or idea drawn from the writings of the Bahá’í Faith.

The text of each thought has been prepared by Fidelma Meehan, a Bahá’í from Swindon in the United Kingdom. She has been presenting such thoughts on national and local radio since 2001.

I feel sure it will be worth subscribing to.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, thought for the day

I was cheered to read this forthright article in FrontPageMagazine.com today. Faith McDonnell, the director of Religious Liberty Programs at the Institute on Religion & Democracy in Washington DC, points out the breathtaking contradiction (not to say hypocrisy) underlying the support that a group of churches is giving to President Ahmadinejad of Iran by holding an invitation-only iftar dinner for him in a prestigious New York hotel.

It is very well known that Iran persecutes Bahá’ís, Christians, Jews and Muslims. The Iranian parliament is soon to pass a new penal code which will make apostasy an offence that will attract a mandatory death sentence, and there is no doubt that this law will be used against Bahá’ís and others the Iranian authorities and religious leaders want to get rid of.

“Dialogue” with a persecutor

So, asks Faith McDonnell, how is it that the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches – United Nations Liaison Office can bring themselves to dine and “dialogue” with the perpetrator of these persecutions, the leader of a country in which religious freedom is off the menu?

She concludes:

Perhaps it would be worth it to hold your nose and dine with the devil if it meant an opportunity to speak out about Iran’s repression and persecution, to be a voice for those who are suffering, and to demand that Islam offer reciprocity for the freedom of religion and decency of treatment that Muslims have received from Christians, Jews, and Baha’is. With Iran on the verge of a new level of repression, and religious minorities in Iran facing a new level of siege because of the proposed apostasy penal code, an American Christian leader is needed to speak with courage and forthrightness over a dinner plate.

They should speak truth to power

Courageous non-Bahá’í Iranians, such as Nobel Prize-winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi, are risking their reputations and even their lives to speak out for the Bahá’ís (see the Bahá’í International Community’s statement on Iran’s disinformation campaign against Mrs Ebadi here). How come these New York “diners with the devil” are not prepared to speak truth to power and to tell Ahmadinejad that Iran’s denial of freedom of thought, conscience and religion to its citizens is utterly unacceptable?

They are shaming themselves, they are shaming those they claim to lead, and they are undermining the efforts of human rights defenders - particularly those who campaign for the much denied human right of religious freedom

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, apostasy, persecution, human rights, religious freedom, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Ahmadinejad

Woolmer Green ©2008 John Barnabas Leith

A stroll on a calm and sunny September day is one of the great pleasures of Autumn in England. Erica and I have a regular circuit that we walk - it usually takes us around 30 minutes - from our Hertfordshire home and there are various places where I almost always find myself moved to take photographs, if the light is right. And the light was right last Friday.

Robbery Bottom Lane and railway viaduct ©2008 John Barnabas Leith

Autumn has a particular look and feel and a particular aroma. A slight sharpness in the air, even when the sun is shining. The scent of benign decay, of fallen leaves and conkers. The leaves turning on the trees. It’s that melancholic but delightful time of the year again.

Autumn woods ©2008 John Barnabas Leith

Harvested fields with two trees ©2008 John Barnabas Leith

Hedgerow tree ©2008 John Barnabas Leith

Sadly, we are not free of litter. Smoking kills!

Smoking kills ©2008 John Barnabas Leith

You can see more of my photos on my Flickr site.

Technorati Tags: England, Hertfordshire, countryside, autumn, walk, trees, fields

Urban jungle photo © by Ronnie Yousefzadeh

Nylon Parla is a great new collaborative photoblog by five Bahá’ís who are talented photographers in five cities, New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles and Chicago. One of the photographers, Ronnie, writes:

we simply take a photo on a theme each week and submit it every sunday.

we are running a trial month to see how it goes….

This week’s theme is urban jungle and the photos are sharply observed and witty.

Go and have a look. Oh, and you can catch up with Ronnie’s life and thoughts at his own blog, Ronster.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, photography, Nylon Parla, urban jungle, Ronster

These pictures from Iranian media sources apparently showing people after Friday prayers in Tehran signing the anti-Bahá’í petition I wrote about in this post.

Now, I cannot read Persian, so I have to rely on those who kindly pointed me in the direction of these photos. It’s impossible for me to say whether the petition is for real or whether it is a stunt on the part of the Iranian authorities.

But either way, it is not a good omen for the already beleaguered Bahá’ís in Iran.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, persecution, petition, Tehran