Friday, March 28, 2008

On Recognition of the Baha'i Faith: Next country to do so, Iran?

The Baha’i Vietnam Community held its first congress in Ho Chi Minh City on March 21 to mark the Government’s recognition of the religion’s legal status.

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2008/03/774707/

Vietnam recognized the Baha'i Faith a year ago, an anniversary just commemorated. A reader emailed me to note the following. -gw

"There are not that many places where the Baha'i Faith is not recognized anymore. Of the remaining places that would make real news, I think the first will be Iran. Don't laugh! I think at the very least there will be a de facto recognition, if not de jure. It has been moving in that direction the last couple of years, in spite of the GOIRI's hardest attempts to crush the Baha'i Faith. The messages of the Universal House of Justice to the Baha'i students in Iran and to the Baha'is of Iran make me think that it will be Iran..."

{Photo: "'Memory of Imam' highway," uploaded on January 5, 2008 by nima s+ on flickr, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic}

1 comment:

Barmak Kusha said...

I concur!

Interestingly, the other country that officially recognized the Baha'i Faith as a religious community this past year was Slovakia. There was a news story on the BWNS about it. Good for the Slovak State! :) The Forel and Brilliant Stars Baha'i-inspired schools do great service there...