Bahá’ís of Watauga, Ashe and Avery Sponsor Presentation and Prayer April 16

The Bahá’ís of Watauga, Ashe and Avery counties will sponsor a presentation and prayer vigil for the Bahá’ís of Iran at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, in the chapel adjoining St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Boone. Admission is free.

“The situation of the Bahá’ís in Iran, who make up Iran’s largest religious minority, is perilous,” said Mary Gray, Bahá’í media representative. “Persecuted with varying degrees of severity for the last 165 years, they are now enduring a highly organized, government-sponsored, systematic campaign aimed at their elimination.  

“Since the early 1980s they have been denied all basic human rights, have been deprived of their jobs, pensions, homes and their right to practice their faith. They have been denied any right to organize or to appeal for justice in their own country,” Gray continued. “Their young people are denied any access to higher education and their small children are cruelly harassed at school with the blessing of the school authorities. Currently eight of their community leaders are in prison awaiting trial on charges that carry the death penalty and that are completely without foundation. More than 30 other Bahá’ís are in prison on similar fabricated and life-threatening charges. They are denied any access to their lawyer, Nobel prize-winner, Shirin Ebadi.”

In the early 1980s, more than 200 Bahá’ís were executed for their religious beliefs, many hundreds more were imprisoned, while tens of thousands lost their jobs and homes. It was only the pressure of international opinion that prevented further tragedy.   

The Bahá’í Faith, which began in Iran in 1844, is the youngest of the world’s revealed religions. It is now, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, the second most-widespread religion in the world. Its teachings center on unity and the removal of prejudice and include the harmony of science and religion, the equality of women and men, education for all, the need for an international auxiliary language and the urgency of finding just and spiritually-based solutions to the world’s economic ills.

Local author Mary Gray, who has written six books on the history and teachings of the Bahá’í Faith and whose work has been published in nine languages, will make the presentation on Thursday.  

For more information, click to www.bahai.org.

For more information on local Bahá’í activities, call 828-264-2297 or 828-297-6222.

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