‘Welcomed’ pardon for Bahai prisoner sentenced to death

Source link

An execution date was not announced, but the judge ordered that it be carried out in public.

Natalie Mobini, director of the Office of External Affairs for the Australian Bahai Community, said then the charges were baseless.

“The charge of spying relates solely to the location of the Bahai World Centre, which has been located in the Holy Land since the 19th century, long before the creation of Israel.

“Furthermore, Bahai teachings forbid proselytising. An individual’s decision about whether to become a Bahai is entirely up to them.

“Mr Haydara has not committed any crime, let alone one that warrants the death penalty.”

Loading

On March 22, the grim news came that the Court of Appeals in Sanaa had upheld the death sentence. Haydara was not allowed to attend court.

In response, Amnesty International’s Middle East research director Lynn Maalouf said, “this decision, taken in Hamed Haydara’s absence, is only the latest development in what has been a flagrantly flawed trial and indicates the lengths to which the Houthis are willing to go to consolidate their control.

“There is no question that Hamed Haydara is being sentenced to death solely for his conscientiously held beliefs and peaceful activities. We urge the Houthi authorities to quash his death sentence, and immediately and unconditionally release him.”

A few days later, in what the Australian Bahai community calls “a welcomed turn of events”, Mahdi al-Mashat ordered a pardon for Haydara and the release of all Bahai prisoners.

Loading

The others to be released were named as Waleed Ayyash, Akram Ayyash, Kayvan Ghaderi, Badiullah Sanai and Wael al-Arieghie.

The Bahai International Community called for the order to be implemented immediately.

“The order must lead to the lifting of the 2018 charges against a group of over 20 Bahais, the returning of all Bahai-owned assets and properties, and the functioning of Bahai institutions,” Diane Alai, representative of the Bahai International Community to the United Nations in Geneva, said.

“Like all other Yemeni citizens, Bahais should be permitted to practise their faith freely, in keeping with the universal principles of freedom of religion or belief.“

Loading

More than 240 prisoners have been released in government-held areas as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus, officials there said.

Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, which is mired in a bloody civil war, has not yet detected any cases of the coronavirus, most likely because of its weak disease surveillance systems.

The civil war erupted in 2014 when the Shiite Houthis, backed by Iran, seized Sanaa along with much of the country’s north, ousting president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Months later the Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened to try to restore Hadi’s internationally recognised government.

The war has killed more than 100,000 people, many by Saudi-led air strikes. It has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, leaving millions suffering from food and medical shortages.

The Bahai faith originated in Iran in 1844. Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Iranian Bahai community has undergone severe persecution.

With AP

Most Viewed in World

Loading



source https://iranians.global/welcomed-pardon-for-bahai-prisoner-sentenced-to-death-2/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest $84 million cuts rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy

Image
Source link By Alexandra Wake, Program Manager, Journalism, RMIT University At the height of the coronavirus emergency, and on the back of devastating bushfires, Australia’s much awarded and trusted national broadcaster has again been forced to make major cuts to staff, services and programs. It is doing so to offset the latest $84 million budget shortfall as a result of successive cuts from the Coalition government. In the latest cuts, wrapped up as part of the national broadcaster’s five-year plan , 250 staff will lose their jobs the major 7:45am news bulletin on local radio has been axed ABC Life has lost staff but somehow expanded to become ABC Local independent screen production has been cut by $5 million ABC News Channel programming is still being reviewed. Even the travel budget, which allows journalists and storytellers to get to places not accessible by others, has been cut by 25%. These are just the latest in a long list of axed services, and come off the ...
Read more

the coronavirus and Joe Biden

Image
Source link By David Smith, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney The US presidential election is being shaped by the two crises that have defined 2020 so far: the coronavirus pandemic and the national reckoning over police brutality and racism. COVID-19 has infected millions of Americans and killed 125,000, while causing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression . Camera phone footage of George Floyd’s brutal killing sparked America’s largest wave of protests at least since the 1960s . The term “unprecedented” has been used widely to describe these events , but they are just the latest versions of the two oldest and biggest problems in American politics: government dysfunction and racial injustice. The “winning” years In 2016, Donald Trump presented appealingly easy solutions to these problems. Untainted by government, he would “ drain the swamp ” of bureaucrats and his business acumen would fix problems th...
Read more

World ‘woefully’ underestimating female genital mutilation – more lifestyle

Source link Female genital mutilation affects far more countries than previously thought, meaning global estimates for the number of women who have been cut are “woefully” low, researchers said on Tuesday. FGM is traditionally associated with a swathe of African countries, but the study highlights growing evidence that the ritual is also practised in other regions including the Middle East and Asia. World leaders, who have pledged to end FGM by 2030, are “seriously off track”, rights group Equality Now said, as it called for global efforts to end the practice to be broadened to more countries. The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF estimates that about 200 million girls and women have been cut worldwide, based on data from 31 countries, mostly in Africa. But Equality Now said at least 92 countries were affected by FGM, including Singapore, Iran, India and Sri Lanka. The study also included an account of FGM from the United States, where a woman from a white Christian commu...
Read more