Too often we may feel, “I’m just one person, out here in the middle of the Pacific. What can I do to help victims of human rights violations?” The answer is plenty.
On 12 June, for instance, dozens of Bahá’ís across the Hawaiian Islands called Hawaiʻis Congressional Delegation in an effort to assist Persian Bahá’í refugees, some stranded in Türkiye, facing the threat of being sent back to Iran where they could face imprisonment because of their religious beliefs, which are considered heretical in the Islamic Republic.
The call-in campaign was arranged by the Hawaiʻi Bahá’í Office of Public Affairs and followed a similar campaign by the United States Bahá’í Community in April. All four members of the Hawaiʻi Congressional delegation were contacted. In most offices information about the situation was shared directly with staffers and in other cases messages were left. The message relayed to our representatives was:
- The number of referrals of Iranian Bahá’ís in Türkiye from the United Nations Refugee Agency for resettlement to all countries has dropped in the past two years to an average of 11 per year.
- This low rate of referrals unduly postpones the resettlement of these friends and heightens the risks and instability of their life circumstances.
- Representatives and senators can help by urging the US State Department to encourage the United Nations Refugee Agency to make referrals of Iranian Bahá’ís to the United States Refugee Admissions Program at a pace that would remove the backlog of 2,000 cases over the course of the next several months.
As a follow-up, the Office of Public Affairs sent additional material to the Hawaiʻi Congressional Delegation, including a letter that was previously sent to President Biden from supporters of human rights organizations across the United States.
Since then, many Bahá’ís in the Hawaiʻi Congressional First District received an email response from Congressman Ed Case who stated in part:
Mahalo for contacting me with your support for Bahá’í Iranian refugees. I fully believe in the right of all individuals to worship freely without fear of persecution. I have long supported and will continue to support the religious freedoms of all individuals in Iran and across the world, including the Bahá’í minority from Iran.
In support of their plight, I voted for H.Res. 492, a resolution condemning the Government of Iran’s state-sponsored persecution of the Bahá’í minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights. The resolution also urged the President and Secretary of State to work multilaterally on this issue. The measure overwhelmingly passed the House on September 12, 2023 by a vote of 413 of 2.
As previously reported in Hawaiʻi Bahá’í News, Congresswoman Tokuda also supported H.Res. 492 and Senator Hirono was in fact a co-sponsor of S.Res 74, which was a similar resolution in the Senate.
What can one person do way out here in the middle of the Pacific? When teamed up with one more person and one more, throughout the islands and throughout the world, you can make our collective voices heard.