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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Now, I haven’t actually been able to view this yet, but it seems that Justin Baldoni of Everwood fame is up on Current TV talking about the Baha’i Faith accompanied by quite possibly the most unflattering photo ever.
I also don’t really get how Current TV works and any time I want to watch anything it [...]

BWNS has an update on the 54 Baha’i youth that were arrested in Shiraz. Fifty-one of them have been released and three remain in prison, even though none of them, neither those released nor the three who are still in prison, have been formally charged:
On Wednesday 24 May, five days after their summary arrests, 14 [...]

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 [...]

While the recent story about coloured badges for religious minorities may not have been entirely true, a story that ran last week in Canada’s The Record reminds us that Iran’s religious minorites are still facing heavy persecution. The piece tells how Khosrow Farahbakhsh, a Baha’i now living in Canada, fled Iran in 1983 to escape [...]

The Baha’i Era began 162 years ago today, on May 23, 1844, when The Báb declared his mission and began to prepare humanity for the coming of Baha’u’llah. From the BBC website:
The young man wearing the green turban was called Siyyid Ali Muhammad [The Báb] and he was descended from the Prophet Muhammad through [...]

I’ve never actually seen the US version of The Office (though I am a fan of the UK version), but today’s Seattle Times has got a profile of Rainn Wilson, who happens to be both an actor on the show as well as a Baha’i:
He grew up in Lake Forest Park and attended Shorecrest High [...]

On Friday, Canada’s National Post put up a story claiming that the government in Iran had just passed a law requiring all religious minorities to wear coloured badges to identify themselves. The story was picked up and swirled around by just about everyone including Yahoo, MSNBC, and others. Now, based on information from, well, just [...]

No one seems to be able to confirm this one for sure (yet), but Canada and Australia are reporting that Iran has passed a law requiring all members of religious minorities to wear coloured badges:
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had “only seen reports” about the law but commented he would not be surprised [...]

It seemed inevitable that something like this was going to happen, but Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court has just suspended last month’s ruling by a lower court that stated Baha’is would be able to identify their religion on official documents:
The earlier ruling, made on 4 April, was passed after a case was filed by a Bahai [...]

Here’s another article out of Egypt, this time from Cairo weekly Al-Ahram. You can read the whole thing here (including the part where the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar refers to the Baha’i Faith as “a sacrilegious dogma followed by a deviant sect of atheists”), but I’ve pulled out a couple of typical passages for your [...]

I have been somewhat remiss in my duties to keep you all updated on things going on in Egypt lately, so here’s a great big update for you.
Over a month ago there was a court decision to allow Baha’is in Egypt to identify themselves as Baha’is on their govenrment documents. It was a great victory [...]

Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno spoke out a few days ago against what he sees as a “destructive myth” that has developed in modern society that religion and science are competing ideologies:
“Knowledge is dangerous, but so is ignorance. That’s why science and religion need to talk to each other,” he said.
“Religion needs science to keep it [...]

An editorial today in the Hindustan Times calls on Indian officials to do what they can to help stop the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran:
The Baha’is are a significant minority in India. The architectural marvel of the Lotus Temple in Delhi is testimony to their commitment to unity in diversity. The lotus has deep-rooted [...]

Just in case you find yourself wandering Europe this summer looking for something to do, the Czech youth website is offering a list of European Baha’i Summer Schools. There are 11 on the list so far and no doubt more will be added before summer arrives.

An article published last week in the University of Maryland’s student paper talked about the denial of education to Baha’is in Iran:
When Sahar Kasiri applied to take entrance exams for state-recognized universities in Iran, she was faced with a difficult decision. There were four options to check for religion, and none of them were [...]

So after the ruling last month by the Egyptian Administrative court that stated that Baha’is in that country would be able to identify themselves as Baha’is on their official government documents, the government has stated that they’re going to appeal the decision:
Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk told parliament the government would base its appeal [...]

I wasn’t sure whether or not I really wanted to put this up, but, you know, since doing so allows me to put a picture of Tom Cruise up on the blog I figured it was worth it. So to everyone that just googled “Tom Cruise + “Baha’i” + “Blog”, thanks for stopping by.
So [...]

As part of a new series looking at life in Iran, the BBC interviewed eight members of the Iranian diaspora (Iranians living outside of Iran). One of them, 24 year-old Soroosh Khavari, comes from a Baha’i family:
My family fled Iran during the revolution because they follow the Bahai religion, whose followers suffer much persecution in [...]

While you’re getting ready to celebrate Ridvan in your community, take a moment to remember the Baha’is in Iran. Since the release of a UN report expressing fears for the Iranian Baha’is last month, Baha’is and others from around the world have been calling for action. There’s a letter in The Independent in the UK, [...]

The story has been up at the US Baha’i News site for a little over a month now, but a friend whose mother had a hand in creating this beautiful quilt brought it to my attention just last week.
The quilt, called “Power of Unity”, incorporates symbols from the world’s religions as well as quotes from [...]

Here are just a couple more updates about the coverage the situation of the Iranian Bahá’ís is getting. First, the ongoing persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran was tackled at the University of Minnesota’s annual Model UN, where the theme was religious persecution and the right to religion:
[Iranian-born Roya Akhavan-Majid, chairwoman of the mass communications [...]

Aside from the strange opening about the difficulty of spelling ‘Baha’i’ (don’t worry, we know exactly what you’re talking about) there’s a great story up in the Huntsville Times about an interfaith devotional meeting held by the Hiebert family of Huntsville, Alabama in the US:
And some people have trouble understanding that when the Hieberts invite [...]