FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>  
refused to accept the all too familiar role of victims. Like the Founders of the Faith before them, they took moral charge of the great issue between them and their adversaries. It was they, not revolutionary courts or revolutionary guards, who quickly set the terms of the encounter, and this extraordinary achievement affected not only the hearts but the minds of those who observed the situation from outside the Baha'i Faith. The persecuted community neither attacked its oppressors, nor sought political advantage from the crisis. Nor did its Baha'i defenders in other lands call for the dismantling of the Iranian constitution, much less for revenge. All demanded only justice --the recognition of the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, endorsed by the community of nations, ratified by the Iranian government, and many of them embodied even in clauses of the Islamic constitution. The crisis roused the Baha'i world to extraordinary feats of achievement. National Spiritual Assemblies who had little or no experience in developing a working relationship with officials of their countries' governments were called on to solicit government support for resolutions at various levels of the international human rights system, and did so with outstanding success. Year after year, for twenty uninterrupted years, the case of the Iranian Baha'is proceeded through the international human rights system, gathering support in successive resolutions, ensuring attention to Baha'i grievances in the missions of rapporteurs appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Commission and consolidating these gains through decisions of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. Every attempt by the Iranian regime to escape international condemnation of its treatment of its Baha'i citizens failed to shake the support the Baha'i issue attracted from a persistent majority of sympathetic nations represented on the Commission. The achievement was all the more remarkable in the context of the Commission's constantly changing membership and a demanding agenda that included human rights abuses in other countries that affected millions of victims. At the same time as direct pressure was being exerted on the Iranian government, the case was attracting unprecedented publicity around the world in newspapers, magazines and the broadcast media. Newspapers such as _The_ _New York Times_, _Le Monde _and _Frankfurter Allgemein
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>  



Top keywords:
Iranian
 

rights

 

achievement

 

Commission

 

government

 
support
 
international
 

community

 
resolutions
 

system


countries

 

United

 
Rights
 

nations

 
Nations
 

constitution

 
crisis
 
victims
 

affected

 

extraordinary


revolutionary

 

Newspapers

 

missions

 

rapporteurs

 

appointed

 

Committee

 

magazines

 

General

 

decisions

 

broadcast


consolidating

 
grievances
 

gathering

 

twenty

 

uninterrupted

 
Frankfurter
 

Allgemein

 
successive
 

ensuring

 
proceeded

attention
 

attempt

 
constantly
 
changing
 

context

 

success

 
remarkable
 

membership

 
demanding
 

millions