From: Patrick Henry patrick_Henry@bigfoot.com
To: UHJ <secretariat@bwc.org>; Letters to Editor
<letters@nytimes.com>;
bahai-faith @ makelist.com <bahai-faith@makelist.com>
Subject: To UHJ July 24, 1998
Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 9:03 PM
July 24,1998
Dear Members of the Universal House of Justice:
As a Bahai, I am saddened by the news of the
execution of yet
another Bahai in Iran. However, the immediate public
statements
made by Firuz Kazemzadeh of the National Spiritual
Assembly
of the United States, reminiscent of Robert Henderson's
piece in
The New York Times on January 13th of this year, appear
equally
lamentable for their blatant hypocrisy: "We had
hoped that President
Khatami's assertions about freedom, justice and the rule
of law in Iran
would apply to the Baha'is of that country.... We urge
the international
community to protest vigorously Mr. Rowhani's killing and
to seek
justice for the beleaguered Iranian Baha'i community."
The tragic loss of Bahai lives in Iran and the
subsequent exploitation
of their deaths by Bahai spokesmen, often in the American
media,
always courting the President and other members of the
government,
has become a predictable pattern rendered intolerable in
the context
of continuing and pervasive Bahai censorship and denial
of human
and civil rights in the United States and elsewhere. Such
incidents as
I queried you about in my unanswered email of March 31,
1997,
available on my Web site, regarding the crushing of the
magazine
Dialogue, the resignations of a number of scholars from
the Bahai
Encyclopedia, the attacks on the listserv known as
Talisman I at
Indiana University, the harassing and blacklisting of
many individuals,
Bahai and non-Bahai, suggest profoundly deep-seated
problems within the
Bahai community and administration.
To-UHJ1.htm
To these incidents must now be added the apparent
conspiracy for more than a
year and a half of the Bahai Computer and Communications
Committee (BCCA),
under the chairmanship of Mark Towfiq, to defeat twice
now, along with the
collusion of other Bahais, the creation of an unmoderated
newsgroup on the
Bahai Faith which would be known as talk.religion.bahai.
You may find
extensive documentation for all of these violations of
the basic human
rights of many Bahais and non-Bahais on my Web site,
"The Bahai Faith &
Religious Freedom of Conscience":
bahai.htm
Because the third interest poll for talk.religion.bahai
on Usenet is
approaching, after August 28th, I ask you again to
investigate the
BCCA and its depriving me of access last November from
all private
Bahai-only mailing lists at a crucial moment just when
the tide of
discussion was going very much in favor of the newsgroup,
noted by
many observers. I also ask whether you supported or were
involved in
that decision? The relevant files can be found on my Web
site under
Bahai-Discuss Archives.
BCCAmenu.htm
Similarly, I would like to know whether your
institution or the BCCA has
approved of or advocated the recent ban of my email
signature file by
the moderators of soc.religion.bahai, as well as their
complete ban for
more than a year and a half now on all discussion
regarding
talk.religion.bahai.
The prevailing atmosphere of suppression of free
speech and
religious conscience that now characterizes the Bahai
Faith cannot
but call into question the honesty of many members of the
Bahai
administration and perhaps the institutions themselves.
I ask once more whether censorship is allowed in the
Bahai Faith and
what passages of the Bahai Writings support it, what are
the "rules," if
you will, of Bahai censorship?
--
FG
www.FG.com
The Bahai Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience
https://members.nbci.com/FG/
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