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From: Iran Press Watch: The Baha'is <neysan@iranpresswatch.org>
Date: Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 9:17 PM
Subject: Iran Press Watch: The Baha'i Community
To: ahang.rabbani@gmail.com

Iran Press Watch: The Baha'i Community

US Department of State on UN General Assembly calls on Iran to meet Human Rights obligations

Posted: 21 Dec 2008 06:24 PM CST

The following is the text of the Press Statement published by Sean McCormack, Spokesman for the US Department of State in Washington, DC, and dated December 19, 2008:

The United States welcomes UN General Assembly Resolution 63/191 adopted on December 18 calling upon the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to fully respect its human rights obligations, and to abolish, in particular, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and juvenile and public executions, including stonings, carried out in disregard of due process and other safeguards. The resolution also calls on Iran to eliminate discrimination and other human rights violations against women and girls, and religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities.

This resolution demonstrates to the Iranian regime the resolve of the international community in speaking out when the government of Iran attempts to silence its own people. The international community will not ignore Iran's violations of the human rights and dignity of its people and its denial of their aspirations for fundamental freedoms.

[Source: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/dec/113386.htm.]

Fired from Work for Being Baha'i

Posted: 21 Dec 2008 06:18 PM CST

Human Rights Activists of Iran has published the following letter of a Baha'i employed by Iran National Broadcasting Agency (which is a state-run public broadcasting and presently is known as Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB), who was fired from work on account of his religion:

In the name of God.

I, Mahmud Rajabi Ezzat-Abadi, son of 'Abbas, officially started working for Sounds and Images in Yazd in 1976. After three years and a few months of sincere work in this organization, because my religion was Baha'i, they terminated me [in 1980] in accordance with official policy.

During these long years, I have lived and provided for my family under the utmost hardship.

I implore you to investigate the rights lost to me as a citizen of Iran.

With respect,
Mahmud Rajabi Ezzat-Abadi

Human Rights Activists of Iran goes on to note:

Attached is a copy of a letter dated 14 August 1980 from the Organization of Sounds and Images of the Islamic Republic of Iran [the correct name should be Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting – translator] which indicates that the Commission to Sanitize the Workplace [from Baha'is] terminated this employee.

It should be noted that during the past 30 years, Baha'is have been barred from holding important jobs or working in the Iranian government. Moreover, in accordance with a secret and appalling policy published in 1990, "the regime must deal with Baha'is in such a way that the path to advancement and growth for them is completely closed."

tn_seda-va-sima-bahayi

[The above report was posted in Persian on Monday, 1 December 2008 by Human Rights Activists of Iran at: http://www.hrairan.org/Archive_87/1242.html. It was also published on the same day by Iran Press News at: http://www.iranpressnews.com/source/050336.htm. This report is provided here in English translation. Ahang Rabbani.]

Baha'is: The New Jews of Iran

Posted: 21 Dec 2008 05:59 PM CST

By Amil Imani

We all need scapegoats. It is in our fabric. It is a potent human disposition to blame others for our failings. Without scapegoats to blame, we are forced to look at ourselves for our problems. Examining ourselves can be very disturbing, particularly when we either lack the resources or the willingness to tackle them. So, we take the good old easy way out of the mess by shifting our focus to the outside world for targets to blame.

Look at young children. They are expert blamers. They always have an answer, someone or something to blame in self-defense. We, the chronological adults, don't completely abandon our childish strategy of ascribing blames to external sources. We simply do so with a greater degree of sophistication by finding, if at all possible, a grain or two of truth to legitimize our attributions.

No one or group is immune from practicing scapegoating. Yet, some individuals and cultures seem to nurture this disposition to an art form, while others resort to it more sparingly.

The magnitude of blaming others correlates with the degree of frustration and failure. As frustration or failures surge, so does the defense mechanism of blame.

Sadly, the Jewish people have been used as scapegoats for many centuries by a variety of non-Jews. Regrettably, Muslims and Islamists, for their parts, have adopted scapegoating as an article of faith. The Muslims blame the Jews for all kinds of heinous things, dating back to the time of Muhammad himself. They say that the Jews of Medina betrayed the holy prophet by their treachery. They charged the poor exorbitant sums for their goods, did no productive work, yet made fortunes through money lending. To make matters worse, the Jews refused to embrace Muhammad's religion, they say.

Hence, following the example of Muhammad, many Muslim societies have been blaming the Jews for everything and find them deserving of victimization. The litany of atrocities committed against the Jews by the followers of Muhammad is long indeed.

Regrettably, ascribing blame to others and legitimizing their victimization has become a way of life with the rabid Islamists. As sick as scapegoating is, it confers advantages to its practitioners. For one, it rallies the faithful against an enemy portrayed as depraved and dangerous. That's how Hitler and his gang of thugs aroused the German nation against the Jews. They falsely, yet successfully, blamed the Jews for Germany's economic problems.

The Islamists, for their part, are still playing the Jewish blame card as best they can. The State of Israel, by its very existence has provided the inept habitually devious Islamists a palpable target to blame and attack. Yet, Israel still not only exists, but thrives in their midst. None of the dastardly actions of the Islamists has been effective at realizing their dream of pushing the children of Israel into the sea.

The bombastic bellicose threats of the monkey Ahmadinejad, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is little more than braying of an overloaded donkey. Even if this appointed villain president gets the atomic bomb, the Iranian people will hdefinopefully secure his leash firmly in his cage and prevent him from embarking on mass genocide.

In the meantime, failure and frustration is engulfing Iran under the rule of the devious corrupt Islamist mullahs. During a span of thirty years of Islamic rule, Iran has achieved the dubious distinction of being on the top or near the top on numerous indices of misery. People are fed up and frustrated. The conniving parasitic mullahs are loath to give up their privilege and power, hence, the need for homegrown target of blame.

The power-intoxicated corrupt-to-the bone-ruling mullahs need further scapegoats to divert people's attention, to fuel the fire of enemy-making that would rally the faithful and keep them in line. Baha'is are perfect for the part. They are so handy. Some 300,000 of them live right in Iran itself. While Ahmadinejad fires blanks of hot-air volleys at Israel, the local mullahs victimize the innocent Baha'is in towns and cities throughout the land.

The mullahs justify their horrific deeds by labeling the Baha'is as enemies of Islam, spies for Israel, and outright heretics worthy of death. What makes the Baha'is "heretics?" Well, in truth, much of the Baha'i beliefs and practices are indeed heretical to the Islam of the mullahs.

These turbaned villains and their hired thugs have done a great job of basically eliminating all internal oppositions by their brutality. They have also chased the majority of the Iranian Jews out of the country by making their life as miserable as possible. The few remaining Jews are still used as whipping boys from time to time. Yet, the Baha'is with their much greater number and their steadfast resistance to the pressures of the Islamofascists, present much more attractive target. In a real sense, the Baha'is who have always been brutalized by the Shi'a Islamists have now doubled up as Jewish substitutes.

The genocidal Islamists have been doing all they can to completely wipe out the Baha'is in Iran as well as everywhere else in the world that their blood-drenching hand can reach. The Islamic government condones and promotes every measure of oppression against the Baha'is. The Islamists don't even spare the dead. They bulldoze and even uproot the trees in Baha'is cemeteries.

Interestingly enough, the holy places of the Baha'is, where the founder of their religion was buried in 1892 — long before the formation of the State of Israel — is a common home for the Jews and Baha'is. The two people live in the Promised Land with the determination to never ever allow any tyrannical order, religious or political, to succeed in its evil designs of using them as scapegoats or implementing its genocidal objectives.

It is incumbent upon all decent people of the world to condemn, by word and action, the Medieval Islamists and any order that brutalizes any people, anywhere in the world.

[Sources: This article was published under the title "Baha'is: The New Jews" at AmericanThinker.com: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/bahais_the_new_jews.html. Published on Saturday, 20 December 2008.]

Center of Human Rights Defenders in Tehran is under Raid

Posted: 21 Dec 2008 04:28 PM CST

Iranian Human Rights Activist Groups in Europe and North America (IHRAG) reports that on the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Center of Human Rights Defenders in Tehran was raided by police and security officers. IHRAG further states:

Today, in a coordinated attack the Iranian security forces cracked down on the center for Human Rights Activists in Tehran, while the center was preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the Declaration.

The security forces banned Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace laureate and the founder of DHRC, from participating in the ceremony, and consequently seized the building and removed all documents within it. All evidence of the Government's human rights violations have now been eradicated.

[Dated Sunday, December 21, 2008, at: http://www.hriran.org/]

Police Raid, Close Offices of Shirin Ebadi

Posted: 21 Dec 2008 01:09 PM CST

Agence France Press (AFP) has just released the news that the Iranian authorities have closed down the offices of Nobel Laureate human rights defender Shirin Ebadi.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian security forces have raided and closed the Tehran office of the human rights center run by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

Iran's judiciary confirmed the closure, saying the center was involved in "illegal" activities, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

"The center was acting as a [political] party without having legal permit," the report said. "It had illegal contacts with local and foreign organizations. It had organized news conferences and seminars."

In an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Narges Mohammadi, the deputy head of the Human Rights Defenders Center, said 10 to 15 uniformed and plainclothes security agents entered the watchdog's office in northwest Tehran as members, including Ebadi herself, were preparing to belatedly commemorate the 60th anniversary of Human Rights Day on December 10.

"I asked them to show their legal warrants," Mohammadi told RFE/RL, "but they declined to show any authorization. Now, there are 10 to 15 agents in the building, and they are filming us."

Mohammadi said 200 to 300 guests had been invited to the celebration but that they had been barred from entering.

"This is an illegal act," she said. "They had no kind of authorization of any kind. They are sealing the office, and our resistance is useless."

Ebadi criticized the raid, saying it will not stop human rights activists in Iran.

"The closure of the office without providing a legal warrant is illegal. We will protest against it," Ebadi told Reuters. "It will not deprive us from our rights activities."

Ebadi used a UN forum in Geneva on Human Rights Day to condemn hard-liners in power in some Muslim countries and rulers of the world's last communist states as abusers of human rights. She said Muslim dictatorships use religion to underpin their own power.

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