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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend February 3, 2006 Kian Vahdat, left, and her daughter Elahe Young, both Bah��s of Medford, left Iran following the 1979 revolution. They will join other Bah��s around the world this weekend in memorializing a Bah�� man martyred in December. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Remembering a martyr Bah�’� faithful say man’s death in an Iranian prison highlights persecution By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune MEDFORD — Incensed by the death of one of their faithful in an Iranian prison, local members of the Bah�’� faith will memorialize him in song and prayer tonight. The persecution, jailing, execution and disappearance of thousands of Bah�’�s in Iran in the last 27 years is lost recently amid the news of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, local Bah�’� leaders David and Elahe Young of Medford said at a prayer meeting in their home Wednesday. Elahe Young and her mother, Kian Vahdat, also of Medford, are native Iranians, who left Iran just before the fundamentalist Islamic takeover in 1979. But they have many relatives there whom they are not allowed to communicate with — and whose fate is uncertain. The memorial service will honor Dhabihu'llah Mahrami, 59, who was imprisoned in Yazd, Iran, for 10 years before his death Dec. 15, an event likely signaling an increase in persecution of Bah�’�s by the new hard-line government, which took over in August, said David Young, Elahe’s American-born husband. Bah�’�s imprisoned in Iran are told they will be freed if they recant their religion, but their faith forbids that, he added. Advertisement The public memorial is at 7 tonight at the Youngs’ home (for information, call 245-4946) and will include music, sung in Persian, prayers and readings on what it means to be designated a martyr, as Mahrami was, in the Bah�’� faith, said Elahe Young. Some 1,100 other Bah�’� assemblies in the U.S. will conduct similar memorials this weekend. She and her mother emphasized that Muslims they’ve met in the U.S. as well as the Shah of Iran, whom they lived under in their native country, respect and care for Bah�’�s, but the ones in power in Iran are "fanatics" who fear the growing popularity of the Bah�’� faith in Arab lands and the threat it represents to their power. The Bah�’� faith, ironically born in Iran, embodies a commitment to telling the truth, showing compassion for others, and stresses non-covetousness, gender equality and a respect for all religions as steps on the path to the oneness of mankind, said David Young, who is a member of the National Spiritual Assembly, the governing Bah�’� body in this country. The Bah�’� faith was started in Persia, now Iran, in 1844 by its spiritual leader, Bah�’u’ll�h. An estimated 20,000 members have been persecuted and killed over the years, according to Bah�’� literature. Followers consider Bah�’u’ll�h to be the final prophet in a progression that includes Christ and Mohammed — a belief that is blasphemy under Islam. Vahdat related stories of three cousins and their families, two of whom were known from anecdotal evidence to have been imprisoned for their faith, but their fates are unknown. Another, an uncle, refused to renounce his faith, though his wife was tortured and killed in front of him, she said. "Muslims think we’re crazy because we refuse to deny our religion, but that’s forbidden in the Bah�’� faith," said Elahe Young. As a practice, the conservative government of Iran denies Bah�’� people access to higher education, coupons for food, pensions, marriage certificates and the right to travel — all actions that aren’t severely protested in the international community, said Elahe Young. However, Iran avoids publicly acknowledged executions, so as to escape sanctions, she added. As a result, only 200 executions of Bah�’� are known, but several thousand Bah�’� have disappeared in the past 27 years, said David Young. "You have no life. It’s hand-to-mouth. You depend on the generosity of neighbors. You’re being slowly strangled by the government," he said. "It’s mind-boggling. It’s outside my experience and I look at it as part of the evolution of mankind," said Bah�’� member David Duncan of Medford. "When dramatic change is happening, like there is now, in the drive toward world peace, there will always be resistance to it." His wife, Carol Duncan, noted, "It’s unbelievable. It amazes me how Bah�’� people are so determined not to recant their faith. Bah�’� is a huge threat to them (in Iran) and they probably know and fear the truth in it." Bah�’�s view the martyrdom of Mahrami not as a cause for grieving but celebration, as "the blood of martyrs opens the way for hundreds more people to hear about the faith, helping bring peace and unity to mankind," said Elahe Young. Bah�’�s hold no ill will toward Islam or the Iranian regime and believe, as foretold by their founder, that the day will come when "Iran will be a great country and a leader among nations," David Young said. John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected]. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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