the Bahá'í International Community decrying Pastor Nadarkhan
Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 6:50 pm
October 5, 2011
To the American Bahá'í community
Dearest Bahá'í Friends,
Many of you have no doubt been following with interest the case—widely being reported in the news media—of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Christian Pastor who has been found guilty of apostasy by the regime’s courts and is facing execution because he has refused to recant his faith.
We are pleased to share with you a statement released yesterday, October 4, by the Bahá'í International Community decrying Pastor Nadarkhani’s sentencing and calling for his immediate release.
We hope its wide dissemination will prompt local Assemblies, groups, and individual believers who have developed friendships with churches and with interfaith organizations in their localities to share the statement with them. If yours was one of the Assemblies assigned the task of contacting your senators and congressional representative, we encourage you to share the statement with the staff your efforts have so far put you in touch with.
We likewise hope Bahá'í Campus Associations will take steps to share the statement with faith-based and other clubs with a special interest in human rights on the campuses of their respective colleges and universities. Bahá'í Public Information Officers are strongly encouraged to share the statement with their media contacts. The power of the statement will be much enhanced if reporters can relate it to an individual in their community who has suffered religious persecution. We recommend you suggest this to them.
In a well-known passage from His writings, the Blessed Beauty advises us:
“Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.”
Your efforts to uphold the human rights of the many victims of the Iranian regime’s relentless campaign of hatred—not least of them our beleaguered Bahá'í sisters and brothers—continue to awaken admiration and pride in our hearts. Let us press on until they can enjoy the same precious freedoms we all too often take for granted.
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
Kenneth E. Bowers
Secretary
National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá'ís of the United States
To the American Bahá'í community
Dearest Bahá'í Friends,
Many of you have no doubt been following with interest the case—widely being reported in the news media—of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Christian Pastor who has been found guilty of apostasy by the regime’s courts and is facing execution because he has refused to recant his faith.
We are pleased to share with you a statement released yesterday, October 4, by the Bahá'í International Community decrying Pastor Nadarkhani’s sentencing and calling for his immediate release.
We hope its wide dissemination will prompt local Assemblies, groups, and individual believers who have developed friendships with churches and with interfaith organizations in their localities to share the statement with them. If yours was one of the Assemblies assigned the task of contacting your senators and congressional representative, we encourage you to share the statement with the staff your efforts have so far put you in touch with.
We likewise hope Bahá'í Campus Associations will take steps to share the statement with faith-based and other clubs with a special interest in human rights on the campuses of their respective colleges and universities. Bahá'í Public Information Officers are strongly encouraged to share the statement with their media contacts. The power of the statement will be much enhanced if reporters can relate it to an individual in their community who has suffered religious persecution. We recommend you suggest this to them.
In a well-known passage from His writings, the Blessed Beauty advises us:
“Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.”
Your efforts to uphold the human rights of the many victims of the Iranian regime’s relentless campaign of hatred—not least of them our beleaguered Bahá'í sisters and brothers—continue to awaken admiration and pride in our hearts. Let us press on until they can enjoy the same precious freedoms we all too often take for granted.
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
Kenneth E. Bowers
Secretary
National Spiritual Assembly of the
Bahá'ís of the United States