13th
Feburary 2010
St. Lucia
Raises its Voice for Religious Freedom
Submitted by Stephanie
Bloodworth
St.
Lucia distinguished itself as the only Caribbean
nation that voted in favour of the resolution
on human rights situation in the Islamic Republic
of Iran at the 64th General Assembly of the
United Nations.
The resolution condemned in forceful language,
the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation
of the Bahá’i Iranian community.
St. Lucia supported Canada for the resolution
and co-sponsored its successful passage with
sixty nine other countries.
Since 1979, Iranian Bahá’is have
faced government-sponsored, systematic campaign
of religious persecution in their homeland.
In its early stages, more than 200 Bahá’is
were killed and at least 1,000 were imprisoned,
solely because of their religious beliefs.
Over the last several years, however, there
has been a resurgence of more extreme forms
of persecutions directed at the 300,000 member
Bahá’i community of Iran, the country’s
largest religious minority.
International experts on ethnic, racial or religious
cleansing have identified a number of warning
signs that often foreshadow widespread purges.
Those include the “classification”
of minority groups into categories of “us
versus them”, efforts to “dehumanize”
them in the media, the organization of hate
groups and “preparation” for extermination-
a category that starts with the “identification”
of individual members of the group.
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