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Women all over the world are con­sid­ered as less than a men even in major­ity of cases by the women them­selves. Much edu­ca­tion and research is needed before the women of our world who are the first edu­ca­tors of the next gen­er­a­tion will rise and claim their right­ful and seri­ous role in for­ward­ing the flight of the bird of human progress and civ­i­liza­tion. The edu­ca­tion of girls there­fore needs all par­ents full attention.

The Bahaí com­mu­nity of Iran has been a lead­ing com­mu­nity in the mate­r­ial as well as spir­i­tual edu­ca­tion of chil­dren espe­cially the girls. As a result of this for­ward think­ing atti­tude, the Bahaí com­mu­nity of Iran within its short 160 years his­tory has pro­duced both women and men of excel­lence in char­ac­ter and intellect.

Women have equal rights with men upon earth; in reli­gion and soci­ety they are a very impor­tant ele­ment. As long as women are pre­vented from attain­ing their high­est pos­si­bil­i­ties, so long will men be unable to achieve the great­ness which might be theirs.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 133)

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton (L) and first lady Michelle Obama ® share a moment dur­ing the fourth annual Award for Inter­na­tional Women of Courage cer­e­mony at the State Depart­ment March 10, 2010 in Wash­ing­ton, DC. The award was to pay trib­ute to out­stand­ing women lead­ers world­wide. Ten women were pre­sented with the award this year. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On March 10, 2010 Sec­re­tary Clin­ton announced the win­ners of the 2010 Inter­na­tional women of courage award. It is an honor that amongst these brave women, there is an Iran­ian women. Iran being the birth place of Tahirih; the first woman who announced the eman­ci­pa­tion of women and mak­ing the women’s right the sub­ject of human rights and equal­ity must be lead­ing the global cam­paign of equal rights for women and men.

Sec­re­tary of States Clin­ton acknowl­edges that the issue of women’s rights is human rights. On the U.S. Depart­ment of State offi­cial Blog (DIPNOTE) you can watch live March 10 Inter­na­tional Women of Courage Awards … more »

Also bel­low is some excerpts from a news arti­cle in Asso­ci­a­tion for Women’s Rights in Devel­op­ment (AWID)about the Inter­na­tional Women of Courage Award for your fur­ther read:

Shadi Sadr, a renowned Iran­ian human rights lawyer, women’s rights activist and mem­ber of Women Liv­ing Under Mus­lim Laws (WLUML) – Inter­na­tional Sol­i­dar­ity Net­work Coun­cil, has been awarded the Inter­na­tional Women of Courage Award 2010. Ms. Sadr was also the recip­i­ent of the Lech Walesa and the Dutch “Human Rights Tulip” awards in 2009.

In light of the crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion for human rights defend­ers in Iran since the dis­puted pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in June 2009, Shadi Sadr is tak­ing the extra­or­di­nary step of ded­i­cat­ing her Women of Courage Award to Shiva Nazar Ahari…  Shiva Nazar Ahari is a ded­i­cated women’s rights activist, and founder of the highly influ­en­tial and respected stu­dent Com­mit­tee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR) in Iran, who is cur­rently being held at Evin prison in Tehran. Shadi Sadr’s deci­sion not to attend the awards cer­e­mony is an urgent act of sol­i­dar­ity with all the women and men – many of whom are her col­leagues – who have been tar­geted in mass arrests by the gov­ern­ment because of their defense of human rights. From among these activists, Shadi Sadr has named Shiva Nazar Ahari, who has been held in Evin prison for seven months in total and sub­jected to inhu­man and degrad­ing treat­ment by the Iran­ian authorities.

You can also read the com­plete text of Shadi Sadr’s speech by fol­low­ing the same link to the WLUML website.

Unfor­tu­nately the Bahaí com­mu­nity of Iran, this peace lov­ing and per­se­ver­ing com­mu­nity has been like a bird in the hand of an igno­rant and blood thirsty hunter who takes great joy in abus­ing while laugh­ing at its inno­cent and defense­less prey! The defender of the Bahaí com­mu­nity of Iran through­out its short his­tory has been no one but Divine assis­tance. Many Bahaís includ­ing the seven pre­vi­ous lead­ers of the Bahaí com­mu­nity of Iran are still in prison. The two are Faribal Kamal-abadi and Mah­vash Sabet and are excep­tion­ally coura­geous and long suf­fer­ing women. They have no plat­form for their excep­tional gifts of spirit and con­tri­bu­tions of thought and ser­vice which is about the very med­i­cine that frees human­ity from the bondage of inhu­man­ity and human right violations.

I hope those of us who are free can take their voice and echo it to every soul who is alive until all human­ity, women as well as men become lib­er­ated and free.

Key­van

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One of the rea­sons for the com­ing of the Divine Man­i­fes­ta­tions of God such as Abra­ham, Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus, Bud­dha, Krishna, Muham­mad, The Bab, and Bahaú’llah is to teach human­ity about divine laws nec­es­sary for that par­tic­u­lar time that will insure the progress of human civ­i­liza­tion. The law of lov­ing oth­ers has always been a spir­i­tual Teach­ing and each new Man­i­fes­ta­tion has widened the cir­cle of who we include in the cir­cle of our love. Through this process of pro­gres­sive rev­e­la­tion of val­ues human­ity has been asked to increas­ingly widen its embrace of love from the small­est; fam­ily, in its ear­li­est stages of civ­i­liza­tion to lov­ing all human­ity in this lat­est stag of human his­tory with the newest teach­ings given by Bahaú’llah. Bahaú’llah is called the prince of Peace and He wants all God’s chil­dren to have the bounty of lov­ing all God’s ser­vants no mat­ter who they are and where they live and what color and shape they have.

The respon­si­bil­ity of jus­tice in the new Dis­pen­sa­tion brought by Bahaú’llah, falls on the shoul­ders of the insti­tu­tions of jus­tice so the indi­vid­ual believer remains free to love all human­ity and respect every person’s human rights.

Fol­low­ing is a true story told by a very devoted Amer­i­can Bahaí that out of sheer obe­di­ence to the new Teach­ings of peace and har­mony for all and ser­vice to human­ity, became the instru­ment of peace and love for the inno­cent and meek; his Bahaí broth­ers and sis­ters in Iran who seemed to have no one to pro­tect their human rights but God. I hope the beloved Bahaí chil­dren in Iran enjoy the story and rest assured that God always loves and pro­tects those who per­se­vere and remain stead­fast to be His instru­ments of peace, divine love and ser­vice to human­ity. May you con­tinue to keep your heart pure and radiant.

I hope some one can send me the Eng­lish ver­sion of this story.

Key­van

Sub­ject: يك خاطره

الله أبهى

دوست محترم آقاي الهام عزيز…

در سالي از دهه سالهاي 1970 ميلادي بود که بنده چون عضو هيئت معاونت. بعنوان نماينده در کانونشن ملي کشور ال سالوادور شرکت کردم .در پايان جلسه دو روزه آقاي “کين تين فرند”  مهاجر خدوم و مومن آمريکائي از من خواست ک ه او را در رساندن يک خانم بومي بخانه اش با اتومبيل ايشان همراهي کنم..با کمال ميل قبول کردم.

آقاي “کين تين فرند” توضيح داد که اين خانم بخاطر شرکت در کانونشن . فرزندانش را در خانه اش بسر پرستي فرزند بزرگترش تنها گذاشتث است و چون حالا ديگر شب فراميرسد و شايد وسيله نقليه پيدا نشود جادارد که او را ببري م بده و بخانه اش.و بهتر است که با ما همراهي کني.

باري سفر تقريباء طولاني شد .تا به ده محل سکونت ان خانم مومن رسيديم.و ملاحظه کرديم کم فرزندان خرد سال او در بيرون کلبه در تاريکي شب در انتظار مادرشان بودند…

در موقع برگشت آقاي کين تين اظهار داشت که چون راه طولانيست بهتر است برايت قدري از يک فصل زندگيم تعريف کنم…من گفتم با کمال ميل گوش ميکنم..

و داستان اصلي از اينجا شروع ميشود:

و ايشان چنين نقل کردند : من در يک خانواده ارتشي امريکائي که پدرم يک افسر باز نشسته با مدالهاي و افتخارات زيادي بود پرورش يافتم.وچون بسن بلوغ رسيدم امر الهى را قبول کردم.پس از پايان تحصيلاتم ميبايست بخد مت سربازي برم..خودرا معرفي کردم و بخاطر ديانتم قسمت پرستاري را بر گزيدم.وقتي پدرم از اين انتخاب من با خبر شد بسيار ناراحت وخشمگين گرديد . آنرا ننگ و توهيني بر خود وخانواده اش دانست .با اينکه من برايش شرح دادم که بخاطر ديانتم نميتوانم در جنگ و کشتار احتمالي شرکت کنم .مگر بعنوان پرستار..قبول نکرد و مرا از خانه بيرون کرد.…

در دومين سال خدمت پرستاريم در ارتش امريکا..يک روز فرمانده قسمت ما مرا خبر داد که خودم را براي انجام وظيفه ام در يک ماموريت و محل ديگري اماده کنم…

روز بعد جيپ ارتشي بسراغ من امد و مرا به فرود گاه ارتش برده و باتفاق فرمانده ديگري بسوي محل مجهولي از نظر من پرواز کرديم .در بين راه صحبت از همه چيز و همه جاشد مگر در مورد ماموريت من.که افسري که مرا همراه بود ميگفت مقصد تو تا اخرين لحظه سکرت و سري است.…

بفرود گاه که رسيديم ماشين ارتشي با يک افسر ديگري منتطر من بودند.….مارا به ساختمان بزرگي برد که يک بيمارستان مجهز ارتشي بود.بهمرا ه افسر راهنمايم با آسانسور يادم نيست که در چه طبقه ئي وارد شديم..راهنماي من پشت در اطاقي که دو سرباز مخصوص جلو ان ايستاده بودند توقف کرده و بمن چنين گغت :  ترا بخاطر سابقه خدمت صميمانه و لياقت ستودني و ارزش اخلاقي که از خود نشان داده اى جهت پرستاري رئيس جمهور آمريکا پرزيدنت آيزنهاور از بين صدها پرس تار سرباز برگزيده ايم… بدنم لرزيد عرق از سر و صورتم جريان يافت زبانم بند آود.. .با خود گفتم من يک سرباز حقير کجا و پرزيد نت آمريکا کجا..چه افتخاري که صدها آمريکائي آرزوي يک لحظه انرا دارند.…در قلبم از جمال مبارک تشکر و طلب توفيق کردم..

وقتي افسر راهنمايم ديد که من از حالت شوک بيرون آمدم در را باز کرد و وارد شد مرا بجناب رئيس جمهور معرفي کرد..

مدتي گذ شت و من در کمال درستي خدمات پرستاريم را انجام ميدادم..

اوقاتي که با رئيس جمهور تنها بوديم و يا در شبها ايشان از من ميخاستند که برايشان روزنامه و يا کتابي بخوانم تا بخواب روند . بعداء من کتاب مناجات و اثر امري ديگري را براي خودم ميخواندم…بيخبر از اينکه گاهي رديس جمهور بيدار ميشد و مرا در حال مطالعه مي ديد.. يک دفعه از من پرسيد که چه ميخواني..عرض شد کتابي از ديانت خودم پرسيد ديانت تو چيست گفتم من بهائي هستم..از من خواست که در اين مورد برايش توضيح دهم..بنده هم بطور اجمالي از ديانت بهائي هر شب چند دقيقه اى خدمت رئيس جمهور بنا ب امر ا يشان در باره تعاليم و برخي از سئوالات ايشان توضيحاتي ميدادم…

روز مرخصي رئيس جمهور فرا رسيد ولي شب قبل از ان از من پرسيد که از کجاي امريکا هستم و از چه خانواده اي ؟؟وقتي فهميد پدرم کيست بمن گفت ..من پدرت را ميشناسم..با هم در ارتش خدمت ميکرديم سلام مرا باو برسان..عرض شد بچشم..بعد از زحمات و خدمت م ن تشکر کرد و از من خواست که اگر خواهشي دارم

هرچه باشد عرض کنم او دستور انجام انرا ميدهد..بنده عرضکردم قربان من وظيفه خودم را انجام داده ام و هيچ در خواستي ندارم..ايشان خيلي جدي دو باره سئوال خويش را تکرار نمود ..

من ناچار شدم بدستور رئيس جمهور عمل کنم لذا با کمال ادب و فروتني و لحجه ئي مصمم عرض شد جناب رئيس جمهور من براي خودم چيزي طلب نميکنم ولي خواهشي که دارم براي خواهران و برادرانم ميباشد و… رئيس جمهور پرسيد.

چه خواهشي مگر پدرت بانها محبت نميکندو؟؟عرض شد قربان منظورم خواهران و برادران بهائي من در ايران هستند پرسيد چرا براي انها؟

من با عرض معذرت بطور خلاصه وظعيت بهائيان ايران در زمان فلسفي(آخوند شورش انگيز و فتنه گر )را براي رئيس جمهور نقل کردم و از ايشان تقاضاکردم لطف کرده و هر جور صلاح ميدانند دستوري فرمايند تا اين اشوب بر طرف شود (در ان زمان روابط ايران و آمريکا خوب بود)..ريئس جمهور سري تکان داد ه و از من جدا شد …

من بپادگان محل خدمتم بر گشتم و فوراء جريان را بمحفل ملي آمريکا گزارش دادم..

چندي گذشت از طرف محفل ملي امريکا بمن خبر دادند که اطلاع دارند که وضعيت احبا دار ايران بهبودي پيدا کرده است..

دوران خدمت من بپايان رسيد و با قطار عازم شهرم شدم و چون پدرم مرا از خانه بيرون کرده بود در اين فکر بودم که تا پيدا کردن محل سگونتي کجا روم ؟؟؟

وقتي از قطار پياده شدم جمعيت زيادي از پدر و مادر و اشنايان را ديدم که با دسته هاي گل

. باستقبال من آمده بودند.….پدرم مرا در آغوش گرفت و گفت پسرم من بتو افتخار ميکنم.و از من معذرت خواست و گفت اشتباه فکر ميکرده در ارتش بودن فقط در جنگ و ادم کشي نيست. بيا و به بين نامه هاي تشکر رئيس جمهور و ستاد بزرگ ارتش امريکا را که بخاطر خدمات صميمانه تو در پرستاري ريئس جمهور برايت فرستاده اند

.…… .……الهام دوست عزيز اميدوارم اين خاطره را اگر صلاح دانستي براي ساير دوستان ارسال داري تا بدانيم که گاهي و شايد هميشه افرادي از يک نقطه جهان جهت ياوري احباي ستم ديده ايران بدون سروصدا اقدامات مهمي انجام ميدهند. شاد و مؤيد باشى

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In a most artic­u­latelec­ture called “The Baha’i Com­mu­nity, Human Rights, and the Con­struc­tion of a New Iran­ian Iden­tity
on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2010 In Chicago, Dr. Payam Akha­van sheds light on one of the most puz­zling con­tem­po­rary issues raised by the Iran­ian community.

In this lec­ture Dr. Aha­van addresses some key ques­tions raised by some Ira­ni­ans such as: Who is an Iran­ian and what makes a good Iran­ian, a good cit­i­zen or bad Ira­ni­ans? Who deserve to be put into prison and sub­ject to vio­la­tions of their human rights.

bel­low you will read some high­lights of the talk. You may also read the entire talk by vis­it­ing the site.

…In Iran, we are wit­ness­ing a strug­gle far greater than a mere polit­i­cal con­test between dif­fer­ent pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. We are wit­ness­ing a strug­gle for the soul of the nation; a strug­gle to build a new iden­tity for the Iran­ian peo­ple. The encounter between the pro­tes­tors and their tor­men­tors is an encounter between the dark past and the bright future. It is an encounter between vio­lence and non-violence, between the courage of those that are will­ing to sac­ri­fice their lives for jus­tice, and the cow­ardice of those that sav­agely beat and mur­der the defense­less. It is an encounter between the best and worst poten­tials inher­ent in humankind…

For the peo­ple of Iran, democ­racy and human rights are not intel­lec­tual abstrac­tions. Free­dom and tol­er­ance are not about idle the­o­log­i­cal dis­putes. For them, these are exis­ten­tial needs in the face of a daily onslaught of vio­lence, decep­tion, cor­rup­tion, and hatred. For them, these demands go to the very mean­ing of what it means to be Iran­ian and what it means to be a human being. What they seek sim­ply is an Iran­ian nation where every cit­i­zen enjoys fun­da­men­tal human rights…

The denial of human rights is not only the prob­lem of its direct vic­tims. It is an assault on our com­mon human­ness. Nowhere is this more appar­ent than laws and poli­cies that make a par­tic­u­lar sta­tus or belief a crime. In this light, what makes the per­se­cu­tion of Baha’is impor­tant is not just the Baha’is them­selves. When the Con­sti­tu­tion and lead­ers of the Islamic Repub­lic pro­claim that cit­i­zens of Iran can be denied the right to edu­ca­tion and law­ful mar­riage, dis­pos­sessed of their sacred sites, ceme­ter­ies, per­sonal prop­erty and liveli­hood, arrested, tor­tured, and mur­dered, and sub­ject to slan­der and hate pro­pa­ganda, merely because of their reli­gion, this is a crime not just against the Baha’is, but also a crime against the Iran­ian peo­ple, and a crime against humanity.

Our iden­tity is not to be found in blind imi­ta­tion of out­ward pre­ten­sions of reli­gious piety. Our iden­tity is a reflec­tion of the moral choices that we make in today’s world and our will­ing­ness to embrace both our self and the other in a com­mon home. Our iden­tity is a social con­struc­tion, our nation an imag­ined com­mu­nity, a shared cul­tural space in which the lives of our peo­ple are inter­twined in a mutual search for mean­ing, pros­per­ity, and progress. Our iden­tity is not fixed in time or place. It is fluid, com­plex, and con­stantly evolv­ing. But we have a fun­da­men­tal choice. And that choice is whether we define our self through hatred or humanity…

In 1987, the United Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on human rights in Iran reported that the per­se­cu­tion of Baha’is included “tor­ture, arbi­trary impris­on­ment, denial of edu­ca­tion and employ­ment, arbi­trary seizure of homes and pos­ses­sions, con­fis­ca­tion of com­mu­nity assets, and seizure, des­e­cra­tion and destruc­tion of holy places.” As “unpro­tected infi­dels”, Baha’is were legal non-persons and denied redress through the courts. For instance, on 21 Sep­tem­ber 1993, the court in the city of Shahr-e Rey failed to impose a penalty on two killers because the mur­dered man was, in the lan­guage of the ver­dict, “a mem­ber of the mis­led and mis­lead­ing sect of Baha’ism.” This amounts to judi­cial approval of mur­der based solely on the reli­gious beliefs of the vic­tim. A more fun­da­men­tal nega­tion of human rights can­not be imagined…

The eman­ci­pa­tion of the Baha’is is also about the eman­ci­pa­tion of Iran. It is about eman­ci­pa­tion from hatred, igno­rance, and vio­lence. It is about build­ing a future in which a divided and back­ward look­ing Iran is trans­formed into a nation that unites its diverse peo­ples under the ban­ner of human dig­nity and true civ­i­liza­tion and reclaims its place as a leader among nations; an Iran in which the mea­sure of patri­o­tism will be com­pas­sion and respect for the rights of all Iran­ian cit­i­zens. At long last, that day is within our reach. But a long and tor­tu­ous road lays ahead, and each and every one of us must arise in sol­i­dar­ity with the Iran­ian peo­ple, to strug­gle for a com­mon jus­tice, and to con­tribute his share at this unique moment in the his­tory of our beloved home.

Source: Gozaar, A Forum on Human Rights and Democ­racy in Iran

Con­tinue reading »

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What a won­der­ful news. She is a bird in the gar­den of divine love. She was in real­ity always free. We pray that Zhi­noos and the rest of the inocent peo­ple in Iran espe­cially the chil­dren and youth con­tin­iou to be under the shadow of His pro­tec­tion and not inter­rupted while singing the songs of His praise and glory. The world of human­ity is proud of its human­ity because of such noble souls.

Wouldn’t it be also won­der­ful if all the peo­ple whose human rights are vio­lated and are in prison because of igno­rance and injus­tice  of the author­i­ties be freed so they are able to do what is good and seemly and serve the cause of peace, jus­tice and human rights.

And while we are at it, wouldn’t it be a great cause for joy when those whose eyes are blind to see the jus­tice of the Cause of the One and only Cre­ater of all mankind, can see it no mat­ter in what mir­ror it shines and let His peo­ple go and let love, peace and unity rein? Please God set free every one who is in bond espe­cially the igno­rant and blind in mind who are in power and are stuck in the prison of their own selves and can cause so much pain and agony for the inno­cent and the meek. Please God let all chil­dren be safe from the mal­ice of the igno­rant and unjust.  O’ God, please let the Bahaí chil­dren in Iran grow and develop in peace.

The fol­low­ing prayer of Abdu’l-Baha says  all that I want to say and even more in a most beau­ti­ful way. Let us all pray:

O Thou kind Lord! Thou hast cre­ated all human­ity from the same stock. Thou hast decreed that all shall belong to the same house­hold. In Thy Holy Pres­ence they are all Thy ser­vants, and all mankind are shel­tered beneath Thy Taber­na­cle; all have gath­ered together at Thy Table of Bounty; all are illu­mined through the light of Thy Providence.

O God! Thou art kind to all, Thou hast pro­vided for all, dost shel­ter all, con­fer­rest life upon all. Thou hast endowed each and all with tal­ents and fac­ul­ties, and all are sub­merged in the Ocean of Thy Mercy.

O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the reli­gions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one fam­ily and the whole earth as one home. May they all live together in per­fect harmony.

O God! Raise aloft the ban­ner of the one­ness of mankind.

O God! Estab­lish the Most Great Peace.

Cement Thou, O God, the hearts together.

O Thou kind Father, God! Glad­den our hearts through the fra­grance of Thy love. Brighten our eyes through the Light of Thy Guid­ance. Delight our ears with the melody of Thy Word, and shel­ter us all in the Strong­hold of Thy Providence.

Thou art the Mighty and Pow­er­ful, Thou art the For­giv­ing and Thou art the One Who over­looketh the short­com­ings of all mankind.

Key­van

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