Baha'i Dad Chronicles: 9 Months and a Day

Douglass 'Ali has reached 9 months old as of yesterday. For some reason this month really flew by. He is up to all kinds of new things like holding his bottle by himself, crawling up the stairs, and playing in his sandbox. Unfortunately the sandbox is full of beetles, one of which almost ended up in his mouth. Y.U.C.K. We'll have to work on the sandbox thing. Douglass spends a lot of time crawling around and exploring everything. For some reason he loves going inside the fridge, he gets super excited about that. He's always trying to take the phone from us and mess with our laptops so we finally gave him an old phone and laptop to play with. He's got some cool new toys like this frog thing that plays music and these rubber blocks that are perfect for making a tower to knock down and also to chew on (he has seven teeth now). He's gotten quite good at clapping his hands when he is happy about something. When it isn't raining he's beginning to enjoy the nice big back yard we bought for him (yes it is his yard). We're still working on the solid food thing, he makes this hilarious face when he doesn't like something. This month he will meet his cousins Whitney, Everest, and Nyla which should be lots of fun for all.

O true companions! All humankind are as children in a school, and the Dawning-Points of Light, the Sources of divine revelation, are the teachers, wondrous and without peer. In the school of realities they educate these sons and daughters, according to teachings from God, and foster them in the bosom of grace, so that they may develop along every line, show forth the excellent gifts and blessings of the Lord, and combine human perfections; that they may advance in all aspects of human endeavour, whether outward or inward, hidden or visible, material or spiritual, until they make of this mortal world a widespread mirror, to reflect that other world which dieth not.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 126)

Baha'i Rights Day Moved to July11th

So Baha'i Rights Day has been moved to Saturday July 11th, rather than Thursday July 9th. Please update your calendars and spread the word.

Trial and Tribulation: World-wide Prayer Chain for Baha'i Prisoners

Just found about about a world-wide prayer chain that will be taking place on July 10th. This is a great complement to the Baha'i Rights Day initiative that is being planned for July 9th. Details about the prayer chain come from bahaidream.com are included in detail below:

On 14 May 2008 agents of the Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran arrested 6 members of the Yaran without charge. The Yaran was a group of Baha'is which tended to the basic needs of the Iranian Baha'i community. The 7th member of the Yaran had been arrested on 5 March 2008. When detained, none of their basic rights were respected. Their relatives have had no news of their whereabouts for months. So far they have not been allowed to meet their lawyer, the Nobel Peace prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi.

Seven months after their arrest the charges brought against them were released: "espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic Republic". Three months after the alleged investigation was completed a fourth charge was added to the other three: "spreading corruption on earth". Some of these charges could attract the death penalty.

Needless to say, those accusations are utterly baseless and only seek to demonize and inflict further harm on the Baha'is.

International reaction to news that the seven Yaran would be tried came swiftly as governments, parliamentary leaders and human rights organizations strongly criticised the trial as well as the charges brought against the Baha'is. They all have called on the Iranian government to release them or at least, to grant them a fair trial and to allow them to meet Shirin Ebadi.

Eventually, just a few days ago, information was conveyed by the authorities in Evin prison (where the 7 Baha'is are held) to the relatives of the Yaran pointing out that the trial would reportedly take place on 11 July, fourteen months after their arrest.

That's the reason why you are invited to join a worldwide prayer chain organised by BahaiDream.com and EjercitoDePaz.com. The prayer chain will take place over 24 hours on 10 July, one day before the reported date of the trial.

To join the chain please choose a time slot and type your name, country of origin and e-mail address (which will not be released -we will use it only send you a reminder). For further information, please contact us at horaciones@bahaidream.com

NOTE: ALL TIMES ARE SET ON GMT +0 (London)

You may want to use the following website to calculate your time zone: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html.

Trial and Tribulation: More Information On Baha'i Rights Day

The Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights has provided more detailed information about the Baha'i Rights Day Initiative.

July 4th, 2009

For many months, we have been thinking about creating a day in which everyone can become aware of Baha’i human rights abuses. We approached our friends at Iran Press Watch with the idea and we agreed upon July 9th (Martyrdom of the Bab) in order to mark Baha’i Rights Day, a day dedicated to support the human rights for members of the Baha’i faith.

We are working on developing content and more ideas to make this day as influential and effective as possible, however this is impossible without your help and participation.

How you can help:

Please inform your friends, family and colleagues that on July 9 they should tweet, blog, Facebook or create any material in support of Baha’i human rights everywhere, specifically in Iran where Baha’is have been severely persecuted against for the past 30 years.

Please use your influence to try and get as many journalists as possible to formally recognize this day and write about Baha’is in Iran or the remaining struggles of Baha’is in Egypt and other countries.

Please contact other bloggers and request that they dedicate at least that single day (July 9th) to write about Baha’is and their rights.

Please tweet about it consistently on July 9 and use the #BahaiRights hashtag in order for people to locate. The idea is to make #BahaiRights a top trend on July 9th.

If you are an artist, a website designer, a musician, or anyone with creative skills please create material in honor of this day and in the name of all the Baha’i victims around the world who suffered persecution and violent discrimination for decades.

Finally, you do not have to be a Baha’i to participate! Please make others aware of that. It does mean something that this day was created primarily by non-Baha’is who would like other non-Baha’is (especially Muslims) to recognize and act upon the abuse taking place in our name.

We rely on people like you to help make this day possible, despite the short notice. Please start spreading the word as much as possible through all your networks and mailing lists and let’s achieve this worldwide Baha’i Rights Day where we all unite regardless of our race or religion to support Baha’is everywhere!

Thank you.