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ppression that had darkened the pages of recorded history throughout the ages. This circumstance highlights the relevance of the Faith's activities to the life of the larger society in which these efforts are taking place. Together with world peace, the need for the international community to take effective steps to realize the ideals in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its related covenants is an urgent challenge facing humanity at the present moment in its history. There are relatively few places in the world where minority populations, because of religious, ethnic or national prejudices, are not still denied basic human needs of some kind. No body of people on the planet understands better this issue than does the Baha'i community. It has endured--continues to endure in some lands--mistreatment for which there is no conceivable justification, whether legal or moral; it has given its martyrs and shed its tears, while remaining faithful to its conviction that hatred and retaliation are corrosive to the soul; and it has learned, as few communities have done, how to use the United Nations' human rights system in the manner intended by that system's creators, without having recourse to involvement in political partisanship of any kind, much less violence. Drawing on this experience, it is today embarked on a programme to encourage governments in a score of countries to institute public education programmes on the subject of human rights, providing whatever practical assistance of its own is possible.(140) Throughout the world, it is particularly active in promoting the rights of women and children. Most important of all, it provides a living example of brotherhood, from which countless people outside its embrace derive courage and hope. * * * * * As the Iranian crisis was unfolding, an initiative taken by the Universal House of Justice suddenly moved the external affairs work of the Baha'i community to an entirely new level. In 1985, the statement _The Promise of World Peace_, addressed to the generality of humankind, was released through National Spiritual Assemblies. In it, the House of Justice asserted, in unprovocative but uncompromising terms, Baha'i confidence in the advent of international peace as the next stage in the evolution of society. Set out, as well, were elements of the form that this long-awaited development must take, many of which went far beyond the po
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