Happy New Year everyone. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that this blog has been quiet for quite some time now, and I certainly do apologize, but exciting things have been in the works.
I’m going to be taking a bit of a sabbatical from… whatever it is that I do, and hitting the road. I’ll be travelling to a bunch of locales and checking out the Baha’i scene while I’m there. The trip is really just getting started now, and the plan is that I’ll be keeping this site updated as I go, with news and photos and whatnot from my travels. And while I do have my list of destinations, I still don’t have an itinerary to go with it, so you’ll all have to keep guessing for now…

Oh, and as a side-note, comments will stay turned off while I’m gone both because I’m still drowning in comment spam and because I really won’t have time to keep an eye on what’s going on down there in comment-land. So, as per usual, just drop me an email instead.

The nine-month battle to give Egyptian Baha’is the right to list their religion on their national ID cards ended today when Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled against the right of Baha’is to be properly identified on government documents:

The decision upholds current government policy, a policy which forces the Baha’is either to lie about their religious beliefs or give up their state identification cards. The policy effectively deprives Egyptian Baha’is of access to most rights of citizenship, including education, financial services, and even medical care.

“We deplore the Court’s ruling in this case, which violates an extensive body of international law on human rights and religious freedom to which Egypt has long been a party,” said Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations.

“Since this was the last avenue of appeal in this particular case, the Court’s decision threatens to make non-citizens of an entire religious community, solely on the basis of religious belief,” said Ms. Dugal.

Now, to get everyone up to speed, back in April an Egyptian Administrative Court ruled that Baha’is in that country could actually identify themselves as Bahá’ís on official government documents. Sadly, the ruling was suspended less than a month later and the govenment annouced that it would be appealing the decision.

So now, after a nine-month trip through the courts, the rights of the Baha’is in Egypt are right back where they were before this all started. Of course, the one bright side to all of this is the incredible amount of media coverage that the story has recieved. The issue has been debated in magazines and newspapers as well as on television both inside Egypt and around the world. And I’m sure it will only intensify after this ruling.

For a much more complete picture of the situation of the Baha’is in Egypt, head over to Baha’i Faith in Egypt, a blog all about, well, the Baha’i Faith in Egypt.

(Update: The story is starting to show up everywhere now. Here are articles from Reuters and AFP, as well as this commentary (and more links) from Egyptian blog The Arabist, and finally this post by Hossam el-Hamalawy, who was at the courthouse when the verdict was delivered.)

Czech it out all (oh the bad puns), the Changing Times conference starts in two weeks and it seems that I have managed to sneak myself onto the bill (they’re under the impression that I’m some sort of “internet specialist”, the suckers). So, for anyone heading to the czech republic, I’ll see you there. I’ll be the one wandering around, trying to think of something intelligent and internet-related to say. Anyone have any ideas?

Why, oh why do I always find out about these things at the last minute? Seattle Baha’is and hip hop super-stars Common Market are in Albuquerque Tuesday night playing with Dan the Automator. So, if you’re luckier than I am and happen to be in the area, can you head down and check it out for me? Look, here’s a map to the venue, and the show is $20. I’ll reimburse anyone who can get down there and give me decent review of the show.
For those of us who won’t be making it, we can at least check out these two little pieces from SPIN.com.
Of course, you could always head over to their myspace page, where you can find out about more of their upcoming shows.

A story today in Uganda’s New Vision is highlighting how the Baha’is in that country are urging their government not to forget the need for a spiritual componant in the fight against poverty:

The Baha’i community director, Daisy Bamuno, said, “There is need to have the spiritual ingredient in the fight against poverty if it is going to be successful.”

Bamuno was yesterday addressing Baha’i members at their temple at Kikaya during prayers in commemoration of the Human Rights Day.

The function was organised to foster ways of fighting poverty as the main cause of human rights abuses in Uganda.

Bamuno said, “There are other persistent ills obstructing the peaceful development of people and the nation. Marginalisation of girls and women, failing states, lack of political freedoms and the HIV/AIDS scourge are some of the aspects. This has led to serious human rights abuses in turn.”

The relief state minister, Musa Ecweru, said, “The Baha’i community’s belief in the spiritual aspect of fighting poverty should be upheld. “The human virtue of trustworthiness is so vital in the social development process that if lacking, no progress can be attained.

For more on the Baha’i perspective on the need for the elimination of poverty, check here and here.

The Baha’i World News Service put up a story a few days ago about a Baha’i who was named the Young Outstanding Malaysian for Moral or Religious Leadership:

“I used to be quite notorious,” said Jia Chin, who is now in his late teens. “I was involved in cheating and fighting.”

But Jia Chin decided to give up on his life of crime after participating in a moral education program sponsored by the local Baha’i community here. “One day I was attending a Baha’i-inspired program with my friend and I saw that I can live differently,” said Jia Chin. “I decided to join the classes. Now my life is different. I am happy and glad now because I have transformed.”

[…]

Now 28 years old, Mr. Lim was recently honored for this work in a ceremony on 4 November 2006, when he was named the Young Outstanding Malaysian for Moral or Religious Leadership by the Junior Chamber Kuala Lumpur Mandarin, a community service organization affiliated with Junior Chamber International.

And check out this little doco all about Mr. Lim (thanks Amy):

It’s that holiday season again, and you all know what that means right? That’s right, it’s winter school time (well, for those of you in the northern hemisphere anyway). Unfortunately, because of my little absence, lead time for some of these is a little tight, but here we go:

• The Swiss Winter School (linked page is german) is running from December 25th to the 30th at the Boldern Centre near Zurich. The theme this year is “One Common Faith” and there will be afternoon workshops in film-making, learning Arabic, singing, deepening and much more. All talks and workshops will be held in or translated into French, German and English.
  Register here or write to tracyshoe@bluewin.ch for more info.
• In the US, there’s the Lou Helen family winter school running from December 27th to January 1st. Registation information here.
• The registration for Japan’s winter school ended on December 2nd, but you may be able to sneak in if you’re going to be Takamatsu City between the 23rd and 25th of December
• And instead of me listing every winter school out there, check the list here for details about winter schools in Ireland, Slovakia, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, New Caledonia & The Loyalty Islands and New Zealand (astute readers will note that these last two are technically summer schools, but let’s not split hairs shall we?)

(Update: An astute reader who, no doubt, noticed that New Zealand is having its summer school now, aslo noticed that if you go to this page of the Swiss summer school site, you can read all about the program en francais)

Just a few quick housekeeping things: I’m getting to the backlog of emails, so if you wrote to me any time in the past few months and still haven’t heard back, please bear with me, I’ll get there eventually. Also, given the huge amount of comment spam that I’m still getting, comments will effectively be turned off. You can try to leave them, but they’re all just going to be deleted until I can work it out. Of course, you can always drop me an email if there’s something on your mind.
Right then, carry on.

So surprise surprise, a lot happened while I was out. For example: this Reuters story onBaha’i Pilgrimage:

The hushed Baha’i pilgrimage to the Holy Land focuses on personal prayer and meditation, and is like no other in a region long torn between religions struggling — often noisily and sometimes violently — for hearts, minds and land.

“It was a spiritual journey for me,” said Mutale Salimu Hobbs, 30, from Zambia in southern Africa.

“It was a great experience, with people coming together as one,” she said on Mount Carmel, the world headquarters of the Baha’i movement above the busy Israeli port city of Haifa.

I was lucky enough to go on pilgrimage back in January and, at risk of sounding cliche, it really was a life changing experience. So if you haven’t yet, be sure to get yourselves signed up.

So let’s just pretend that I put up the following post up a few weeks ago:

I’m going to be dropping off-line for a few weeks owing to a change of job, change of house and change of continent. Then I’m goign to go on vacation, and then my computer is going to die and I’m going to have to get it fixed… And by the time all of that is over, I’m sure I’ll hardly even remember how to blog. So bear with me. Be back soon.

Yeah, so anyway, I’m back now and I’ve got a whole pile of stuff to catch up on.

Heads up all, this year’s Changing Times conference is starting in a mere 67 days [gratuitous exclamation point]. The annual conference takes place at the Townshend International School in the Czech Republic, this year running from the 25th of December until the 1st of January. It also happens to be, by all accounts, the hottest place to rock the holiday season for all you mid-20’s Baha’i movers and shakers (though how that can be true when I have yet to attend, I have no idea).
But if spending a week in the scenic central Europe, mingling with young Baha’i professionals from 30-odd countries and attending sessions on the construct of race, conflict resolution, and ethics and morality sounds like a good time to you, you’d better get yourselves registered right quick as there is always a huge waiting list of eager folks just like you scrambling to attend (rumors are 300-400 poor souls get left out in the cold every year, so great is the demand; check the registration policies here).
And once you’ve got your lucky self all signed up, keep an eye on the Changing Times blog to stay abreast of the latest developments.

Ferraby Lionheart, long a favorite of ours here at Baha’i blog, is now, it seems, a favorite of everyone. Interweb music hipsters Stereogum, after naming him an artist to watch, was all a-gush over his show a few days ago; and his first solo release “self-titled EP” has been getting some wonderfully glowy reviews.
So do yourselves a favor and head over here, here and here to download some tracks and then here to watch him serenade an old lady (such a nice boy) and after all that, when you’re as completely in love with him as I am, head over here to buy your own copy of “self-titled EP”. Now excuse me while I go back to listening to “Tickets to Crickets” for the fiftieth time in a row.

Ok, so while I was gone, Jerome sent me an email about a music industry weekend at Bosch Baha’i School and, as it’s going on this weekend (starts on Thursday evening), I wanted to make sure to let you know about it right away:

Dear Friends,

We want to invite you to a special event for Baha’i musicians like no other:

The 4th Annual Baha’i “Music Development Weekend” at Bosch Baha’i School in Santa Cruz California.

It starts Thursday evening October 5th and runs through Sunday, October 8th.

If you are a Baha’i, and a musician or producer, and music is important to you,
THIS MAY BE THE MOST REWARDING WEEKEND YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THIS YEAR!
YOU WILL NOT WANT TO MISS THIS CHANCE TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF MUSIC IN THE BAHA’I COMMUNITY
We’ll plan future collaborations, and share some lessons learned about performing, recording, producing and promoting our musical art.
We’ll explore not only how to make money with our craft, but also how to be more effective as musicians in the Baha’i community. And of course, we’ll jam a bit too, and perform!

Call or email the school today to reserve your place at this wonderful event.
If you can’t stay the whole weekend, come for the concert on Saturday evening!

Bosch Baha’i School, 500 Comstock Lane, Santa Cruz, CA 95060-9615
On the web at:

http://www.bosch.org/Site/Sessions.html

Phone: [831] 423-3387
Fax: [831] 423-7564
E-mail: bosch@usbnc.org

Hope To See You There!

So if you’re free this weekend and in the neighbourhood, head over here and get yourselves signed up.

I’m sorry, did I say 2 weeks? I really meant to say 3 months…
But I’m back from my little vacation, rested and relaxed and with a whole stack of things to get caught up on, like wading through emails and trying to figure out how to get rid of 2500 viagra-gambling-cheap-meds spam comments. If you sent me an email in the past 3 months, don’t worry, I’ll get to it. If you tried to post a comment to the blog, um, well, you may need to try that one again.
And updates will be flowing once again on a regular basis, so if you’ve got anything that you think everyone needs to know about, drop me a line. I promise it won’t take me 3 months to get back to you.

I’ll be gone on the 9th of July, so I’m just going remind you all now that the Martyrdom of the Bab took place on July 9th, 1850. From the US Baha’i Website:

On the day of his execution, a young follower burst through the assembled crowd and begged to be allowed to be martyred along with the Bab. At noon, 10,000 people gathered to watch the double execution by a 750-man firing squad.

When the smoke cleared, the follower stood there unharmed, and the Bab was gone. He soon was discovered back in his cell. That same day he was brought before a new firing squad (the previous one was too traumatized). This time the Persian government accomplished its mission.

There’s also a beautiful flash presentation.

I’m heading on vacation for the next two weeks, so posting will be light. Or not at all.
I’ll be picking up “ry went on vacation and all I got was two weeks of no posts on Baha’i Blog” t-shirts for everyone. Please leave your size and colour preference in the comments.

A U.N. special investigator on Adequate Housing is warning that forcible evictions of ethnic minorities in Cambodia and Iran is a “human rights crisis”. In the case of Iran, the investigator specifically mentions the situation of the Baha’is:

He says he continues to receive reports about Bahais who have had their land confiscated.

“In the last two years, there has been an increase in the number of Bahai leaders or prominent people who have been arrested and without any charge and then released with very high bail,” Kothari said. “And, the only way in which they can post this bail is to put their property as a guarantee. This seems to be another method of expropriation.”

There are a couple of stories out this week about Baha’i Houses of Worship. The first, from the Chicago Tribune, talks about the ongoing restoration of the gardens around the House of Worship in the US. The other story, from the New Vision newspaper in Kampala (via the allAfrica news service) lists the House of Worship in Kampala as one of the Eight Wonders of Uganda.

There may be a lucky few of you out there that are a) in Seattle and b) holding tickets to tonight’s sold out Common Market and Blue Scholars show at the showbox, but for the rest of us at least there’s this story in the Seattle Times to keep us in the loop. And for those few of you that have no idea why you would want to be either of those things, please do yourselves a favor.

I caught a glimpse of this on Forbes earlier today, but now it seems to be all over the place. Mariam Fam of the Associated Press has just put up a great story about the situation of the Baha’is in Egypt:

Tucked away in Labib Iskandar’s pocket is a neatly folded slip of paper with fraying edges that tells the story of a community fighting for recognition. It’s a receipt Iskandar got when he applied for the computer-based identification card Egypt had just then begun issuing — more than five years ago.

Iskandar is a Bahai, a member of a religious community that regards a 19th-century Persian nobleman, Baha’u'llah, as a prophet — a challenge to the Muslim belief that Muhammad is the last prophet. Given the pivotal role of Islam in Egyptian life, the government will not issue an ID card to a Bahai, but only to Muslims, Christians or Jews.

Interestingly, while surfing around to try and find a photo to go with this post (you’ll see I didn’t come up with anything) I came across this piece from from Egypt’s Al-Ahram weekly from back in September of 2004. It’s a look at The US State Department’s 2004 International Religious Freedom Report, and in it writer Reem Nafie notes that the Egyptian Baha’i community found it’s way into the report because:

Supposedly, when the Interior Ministry recently began to upgrade its automation of civil records, including national identity cards, Bahais found themselves left out by the new software that was used in the process, which only categorised citizens as Muslims, Christians or Jews.

So it’s not the Egyptian government that’s denying Baha’is their rights, it’s Egyptian computers that are the problem.

The latest out of Egypt is that the government appeal that was set for last monday has been postponed until September 16. And since the court has already suspended the earlier ruling, Baha’is in Egypt are still unable to obtain identification cards, birth certificates or death certificates that accurately identify their religion.

The Baha’i International Community has just launched the Baha’i Media Bank, the new place to go for your Baha’i image needs. So if you’re looking for just the right picture for your website, newsletter, school project or blog post head on over, set up your free account and start browing through their thousands of photos.

(via BWNS)

BWNS has a story up with the latest news from Egypt. If you’ll recall, back in April a lower court in Egypt ruled that Baha’is should be able to have their religion listed as “Baha’i” on all government-issued ID. Almost immediately the government announced that they would be appealing the decision and since then the issue has been debated all over the Egyptian media. Well, it seems that the government’s appeal will go before Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court on Monday.
From the BWNS story:

“This is not about forcing the Egyptian government or anyone to accept or recognize the divine origin of the Baha’i Faith,” said [Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations], “It is simply that Baha’is, like all other Egyptian citizens, are legally required to obtain government-issued ID cards. And without such documents, Egyptian Baha’is are unable to gain legal access to employment, education, and medical and financial services, and are deprived of freedom of movement.”

Ms. Dugal said human rights organizations in Egypt and elsewhere will closely watch the appeal process.

“For Baha’is, the issue is simply a matter of obtaining the same rights granted to every other Egyptian citizen, and being allowed to live their lives in peace,” said Ms. Dugal. “But there is little doubt that the issue has taken on a wider significance in Egyptian and Arab society, as evidenced by the intense discussion on issues of religious freedom and tolerance that this simple case has stimulated.”

An Egyptian Baha’i blogger has been following the situation very closely and is blogging on the stories that have been running in the Egyptian press and the state of the Egyptian Baha’is in general. Not being an Arabic reader myself, I can’t comment on the accuracy of his reports, but he certainly seems to know what he’s talking about. Well worth a read.
Earlier posts about Egpyt can be found here.

(Update: reader Mahmoud makes a good point when he askes how I knew the egyptian blogger was a Baha’i. I just assumed. And you know what they say about assuming…)

There’s a story in today’s New York Times about the ongoing persecution of the Baha’is in Iran. The article covers UN Rapporteur Asma Jahangir’s report expressing concern for the Bahai’s in Iran, the arrest last week of 54 Baha’is who were taking part in a community service project, the ongoing campaign of misinformaiton in Iranian newspapers, and more:

Members of the Bahai religious minority in Iran said this week that the government had recently intensified a campaign of arrests, raids and propaganda that was aimed at eradicating their religion in Iran, the country of its birth.

On May 19, Iranian security officials arrested 54 Bahais in the city of Shiraz who were involved in a community service project, many of them in their teens and early 20’s, said diplomatic officials and Bahai officials outside of Iran.

[…]

The developments have alarmed human rights monitors at the United Nations, who say that since December, the government newspaper in Tehran has published more than 30 articles denigrating the Bahai faith — even accusing Bahais of sacrificing Muslim children on holy days. The arrests coincided with raids on six Bahai homes, in which notebooks, documents and computers were confiscated. More than 70 other Bahais have been arrested since January 2005 in smaller clusters, and some are still being held, the monitors said.

For more information about the situation of the Baha’is in Iran check here and here.

An interesting article up right now on the Scripps Howard News Service examines the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran, particularly the stories - full of lies and misinformation - that have been running in Kayhan (link to persian site), the state-run newspaper:

Anyone who reads the newspaper Kayhan knows that Baha’i believers are part of a giant conspiracy against Iran that has, at one time or another, included England, Russia, Israel and the CIA.

Baha’is also embrace alcohol, pork, gambling and adultery.

Human rights activists are studying this new wave of hate for one reason _ the Islamic Republic of Iran runs Kayhan. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei picks the managing editor. So there’s more to these headlines than ink and paper.

“When Iran has a new enemy, it never takes long for them to connect that enemy to us,” said Kit Bigelow, external affairs director for the Baha’i faith in the United States. “It used to be Russian and Britain, then it was Israel and the Zionists. Now, it’s the United States. … We can see certain dots being connected right now in Iran, even though we can’t say for sure that we can see cause and effect. It’s foreboding.”