Nor can I in this survey allow to pass unnoticed the energetic and
commendable efforts exerted by Baha'i communities the world over for the
support, protection and relief of the persecuted members of the Persian
Baha'i Community subjected to one of the severest ordeals experienced in
recent years by the steadfast followers of the Faith in the land of its
birth. Following this barbarous recrudescence of religious persecution and
the transmission of over one thousand messages by Baha'i communities, some
in writing and others telegraphically, to His Majesty the _Sh_ah, the
Government, the Majlis and the Senate, and reinforcing the wide publicity
given in the world's leading newspapers and the numerous protests voiced
by scholars, statesmen, government envoys and people of eminence such as
Pandit Nehru, Eleanor Roosevelt, Professor Gilbert Murray and Professor A.
Toynbee, a written communication accompanied by a memorandum listing the
atrocities perpetrated throughout the Persian provinces, was submitted in
Geneva to the Secretary General of the United Nations, who appointed a
commission of United Nations officers, headed by the High Commissioner for
Refugees, instructing its members to contact the Persian Foreign Minister
and urge him to obtain from his government in Tihran a formal assurance
that the rights of the Baha'i minority in that land would be protected.
Copies of this communication addressed to the United Nations were
delivered to the representatives of the member nations of the Social and
Economic Council, to the Director of the Human Rights Division, and to
certain specialized agencies of non-governmental organizations with
consultative status. Furthermore, the American President was appealed to
by the national representatives of the American Baha'i Communities as well
as by all local Assemblies and groups in the United States. A courteous
and reassuring letter was subsequently received by the American Baha'i
National Spiritual Assembly from the State Department in Washington,
acknowledging the receipt of the appeal, while the Director of the
Division of Human Rights addressed in his turn a communication to the
Secretary of the American National Spiritual Assembly, informing him that
summaries of both the letter and petition forwarded to him would be
furnished to the Commission of Human Rights, and copies sent to the
Persian Government. Assurance was moreover given that summaries would also
be sent to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities. As a further measure to obtain redress a
forty-thousand dollar publicity campaign was initiated by the American
Baha'i Community designed to lend an impetus to the proclamation of the
fundamental verities of the Faith, the aims and purposes of its followers,
and of the disabilities suffered by the overwhelming majority of its
adherents in the land of its birth.