Who are the canaries in Iran's mineshaft?

A reflective article from this prominent professor on the background for the persecution of the Bahá'ís in Iran, in Canada's The Globe and Mail.
(Excerpt:)

We must raise our voices and cry out against the calumnies of this regime, not because we will influence its behaviour – I'm convinced we won't – but because it's our duty to speak truth to power even as power tramps on truth and persecutes the almost forgotten first victims of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

The canaries in Iran's cages

The canaries in Iran's cages: None are more persecuted than the Baha'i AP

In hard-line Iran, none are more persecuted than the Baha'i

Howard Adelman

Special to Globe and Mail Update Published on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010

The Islamic Republic of Iran is going to show any wavering authoritarian regime just how it's done. No “colour” revolution will be allowed. No surrender to the street. No departing on a quickly arranged flight to seek refuge, as the Shah did. This regime has no intention of playing “nice” with anyone, including those mullahs who used to back the regime. To stay in power, even in the age of tweeting, ignore the tweets. Pick up your clubs and throw them in jail. Some technologies don't change.

The few “moderates” left in the system have all been purged. Instead of a stick in one hand and an olive branch in the other, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his coterie of like-minded extremist ideologues project mistrust and defiance. ...

On Dec. 18, the United Nations General Assembly passed a strong resolution condemning Iran's human-rights abuses – including the denial of basic civil and political rights, the use of torture and rape, the excessive use of capital punishment, the execution of juvenile offenders, the increasing numbers of hanging and stoning, the brutal suppression of women's rights advocates, and discrimination against minorities. Not surprisingly, it made no difference. ...

Comprehensive international sanctions against the regime – for its nuclear weapons projects and its brutal human-rights violations – have become a necessary next step even as threats to destroy Israel and export terrorism to Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan have somewhat receded because of the distractions of the demonstrations in Iran. (The U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany have tentatively agreed to meet this weekend to discuss Iran's nuclear defiance.) ...

Amidst all this brouhaha, the canaries in their cages in Iran continue to suffer and die. Due to be put on trial today, in Revolutionary Court 28, are seven Baha'i members of Friends in Iran, the group that assumed the functions of the banned Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly. These leaders have been imprisoned for nearly two years.

Three previous trial dates in 2009 were postponed, adding to the psychological terror against Iran's largest religious minority. They will be represented by new lawyers. Their earlier ones, such as Abdolfattah Soltani or Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi (neither one a Baha'i), were imprisoned or forced to flee the country. ...

Last March, Canada's House of Commons unanimously condemned the persecution of Baha'is in Iran. Both the U.S. Congress and the UN General Assembly have also censured the persecution of Baha'is.

We must raise our voices and cry out against the calumnies of this regime, not because we will influence its behaviour – I'm convinced we won't – but because it's our duty to speak truth to power even as power tramps on truth and persecutes the almost forgotten first victims of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

Howard Adelman is professor emeritus of philosophy at York University; he founded the Centre for Refugee Studies.

Read the whole thing here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-canaries-in-irans-cages/article1427611/