News

(BWNS 26 June 2011) GENEVA— The worldwide outcry against the persecution of Iran’s Baha’i community has been joined by the Chilean Senate, a Muslim Senator in Canada, and prominent Indian organizations.

The latest calls – for an end to both the imprisonment of Iran’s seven Baha’i leaders and the continuing detention of 12 staff and faculty members of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) – have coincided with the sending of a message to the Baha’is of Iran by the Universal House of Justice.

The letter, written in Persian and dated 17 June, dismisses as “baseless” and “absurd” statements by the Iranian authorities that the Baha’i community’s effort to educate its young members is “illegal.”

It also upbraids those in Iran who, it says, have shunned true Islamic values, the laws of their land, and the nation’s proud history of learning and knowledge, and have allowed themselves – based on ignorant religious prejudice – to deny young citizens of their higher education.