54 Baha’i Youth have been arrested in Iran. From the BWNS story:

The arrests occurred on Friday, 19 May, while the Baha’is, along with several other volunteers who were not Baha’is, were teaching classes to underprivileged children in a school as part of a UNICEF community service activity conducted by a local non-governmental organization. At the time of the arrests, they had in their possession a letter of permission from the Islamic Council of Shiraz. They also carried the letter of permission in each of their classes.

The nature of the charges against the Baha’is is unknown at this time. The day following the arrests, a judge told family members that the detainees would be freed soon. As of today, it appears that all of the non-Baha’is and one Baha’i junior youth have been released without having to post bail.

The arrests coincided with raids on six Baha’i homes during which notebooks, computers, books, and other documents were confiscated. In the last 14 months, 72 Baha’is across Iran have been arrested and held for up to several weeks.

Also here, here, and here, and here.

update: bloggers are bloggity-blogging about this here, here, here and here.

update update: the following correction was just sent out by BWNS:

In the 24 May 2006 story on the arrests of Baha’is in Shiraz, we reported that they were teaching classes to underprivileged children in a school as part of a UNICEF community service activity conducted by a local non-governmental organization when they were arrested. We have learned since that the project was one of local initiative, in which participants modeled their efforts after a UNICEF project. It was not, however, directly associated with UNICEF. We apologize if this caused any misunderstanding.

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