Religious minorities in Iran
I am going to write about the religious minorities in Iran. Iranian religious minorities are Sunnis, Christians, Zartoshtis, Jews, Bahais. Apart from Bahais, all of them are officially recognized by government. Every minority has own problems in our Shiah society.
Since the followers of Bahaism and Judaism have much more difficulty and restriction in our society, I will only write about Bahais and Jews particularly Bahasim which is not recognized as a religious minority. This sect has been officially persecuted and many leaders of Bahais have been arrested, and several of them were executed for apostasy. They are prohibited from holding any government employment and they are not issued identity cards!!. Regarding the Jews, in addition to other matters that minority groups face in our society, the Jews have been viewed with suspicion by the government, probably because of the government's intense hostility toward Israel.
My approach to this issue is based on the ” Universal Declaration of Human Rights" , Articles 2,18 and 26. Here I will not try to prove or reject anything since I think that beliefs are not falsifiable. Indeed, I do not talk about political issues in this regard. I hope that my friends help me to expand on this issue.


Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it is independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 26
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.


(posted by Iman)

Posted:Friday, March 07, 2003 | 

Updates
I have updated the links (especially weblogs). If what we write here is nonsense, at least you may find some useful links.
(posted by Iman)

Posted:Friday, March 07, 2003 | 

Hundreds of millions of chronically hungry people


The world's population will be better fed by 2030, but hundreds of millions of people in developing countries will remain chronically hungry. This is one of the key messages of World agriculture: towards 2015/2030.
The study says that the number of hungry people is expected to decline from around 800 million today to about 440 million in 2030. This means, that the target of the World Food Summit in 1996, to reduce the number of hungry by half by 2015, will not even be met by 2030. It stated that parts of South Asia may be still in a difficult position and much of sub-Saharan Africa will probably not be significantly better off than at present in the absence of concerted action by all concerned. Therefore the world must brace itself for continuing interventions to cope with the consequences of local food crises and for action to remove permanently their root causes. Read ” more"


(posted by Iman)

Posted:Thursday, March 06, 2003 | 

Migrations: Humanity in Transition



Babies playing on the roof of a FEBEM (foundation for Child Welfare) centre in the Pacaembu district. Some 430 children live here, 35% of whom were abandoned on the streets, the others delivered at the centre by parents no longer able to care for them. Sao Paulo, Brazil. 1996. Photograph by Sebastiao SALGADO.


Sebastiao Salgado " , the Paris-based, Brazilian-born photojournalist who made a major impact on the world of images in 1993 with Workers, a dramatic documentation of manual labour at the survival level.
….. It is human movements on a grand scale that Salgado has documented, giving us a series of pictures suggesting millions of people in motion, seeking survival and a better life -- one individual at a time, one family at a time, from field to town to city, and across national boundaries..


(posted by Iman)
Posted:Thursday, March 06, 2003 | 

Women Stripped of Property in Kenya

Human rights watch reported, “Women throughout Kenya lose their homes, land, and other property due to discriminatory laws and customs. Human Rights Watch said property rights abuses in sub-Saharan Africa perpetuate women's inequality, doom development efforts, and undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Here is a shocking real story “ Emily Owino, a fifty-four-year-old widow from western Kenya, said that shortly after her husband died, her in-laws grabbed her farm equipment, livestock, household goods, and clothing. The in-laws insisted that she be "cleansed" by having sex with a social outcast, a custom in that region, as a condition of staying in her home. They paid a herdsman to have sex with Owino, against her will and without a condom. Her in-laws later took over her farmland. She sought help from the local elder and chief, who did nothing. Her in-laws forced her out of her home, and she and her children became homeless. No longer able to afford school fees, her children dropped out of school.” Read " more "


Posted:Wednesday, March 05, 2003 | 

There are few English weblogs that their bloggers are Iranian. An interesting weblog that I have recently found is " Pejman Pundit " . He writes daily and you can find update news and interpretations about politics, social matters and so many other things particularly about United States in his weblog. As he wrote in his detailed " biography " , his father is Iranian but he was born in states. Though he lived and studied in States, he has realistic opinion about Iran. I recommend reading his weblog.


(posted by Iman)

Posted:Wednesday, March 05, 2003 | 

Sex boycott urged over war
Women opposed to the war with Iraq have been urged to withhold sexual favours from their partners if the menfolk are pro-war. On Monday thousands of actresses all over the world were taking part in a reading of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, as part of a protest against the war. In the play, penned by Aristophanes in 415BC, a group of Greek women, fed up with their warmongering husbands, go on a sex strike in a bid to end the endless conflicts. Eventually the menfolk cave in and agree to a truce.
“Basically we are saying No Peace, No Sex.” Read "more… "
" Here " you can find an interesting article in this regard.

It would seem that even in western countries, many people still look at women through traditional point of view!!!.

(posted by Iman)
Posted:Wednesday, March 05, 2003 | 

I recommend listening to New Radicals for those who can get a hold of their albums

(posted by farid)

Posted:Wednesday, March 05, 2003 | 

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)was awarded the Nobel Prize for poetry in 1923."The Second Coming" was written in 1919, shortly after the first world war, and when British soldires in Ireland were seeking to quell the republican movement.
gyre(line 1):a circular or spiral motion
Sprititus Mundi(line 12):the Soul of the Universe, sourse of images
lion -man(line 14):the Egyptian sphinx

The Second Coming

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
(posted by farid)

Posted:Tuesday, March 04, 2003 | 

Less saturated fats, sugar and salt, more fruit and vegetables and physical exercise, needed to counter cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Couple of months ago, I read an abstract stated that European people body style is going to change in 21 centaury. In contract to the some changes in their ancestors’ body shape about 200 years ago that the height of them increased about 20 cm, their weight is now going to increase, like barrel!!!
Yesterday, WHO/FAO released independent Expert Report on diet and chronic disease examining the interrelationship between diet, nutrition, physical activity and chronic disease. They remark that a diet low in energy-dense foods that are high in saturated fats and sugars, and abundant in fruit and vegetables, together with an active lifestyle are among the key measures to combat chronic disease.
Read more " here " .



(posted by Iman)

Posted:Tuesday, March 04, 2003 | 

The jaunty rythm of the second half of this song has a striking resemblance to an Iranian song I heard years ago, can any body help me
find that song?(posted by farid)

PHIL COLLINS
Colours


Deep inside the border
Children are crying
Fighting for food
Holding their heads
Breaking their bread with a stone
All along the roadside
people are standing
watching the sun
shielding their eyes
Brushing the flies from their face
Tell me, what can you say
Tell me, who do you blame
Like a mirror you see yourself
These people each have a name
All around the township
Young men are dying
(of) hunger and thirst
The well has run dry
The tears from her eye feeds her son
Tell me...
You can say you're pulling back
We see the pictures everywhere
But what we don't see is what's
Going on behind the closed doors
And you don't seem to care
Do you expect me to believe you
How can you really think
You can take your horse down to the water
Hold a gun at his head
And make him drink
No matter what you say, it never gets any better
No matter what you do, we never see any change
People living without rights
Without their dignity
How loud does one man have to shout
To earn his right to be free
You can keep your toy soldiers
To segregate the black and white
But when the dust settles
And the blood stops running
How do you sleep at night?
No matter what you say...
What makes you so high and mighty
What makes you so qualified
You can sit there and say
How many have their freedom
But how many more have died
You decide to sit in judgement
Trying to play God yourself
Someday soon the buck is gonna stop
Stop with you and noone else
No matter...


Posted:Monday, March 03, 2003 | 

Delta 32 and AIDS

During the last 15 years, understanding of the pathogenesis of HIV- 1 infection and AIDS has developed rapidly. From a mysterious plague-like untreatable disease with unknown cause and transmission route to a well characterized, chronic, manageable, if yet not curable, retroviral infection.
Several large epidemiological studies of people with clinically defined AIDS have revealed that the CCR5-Delta32 allele. It is a common mutational variant of the CCR5 coding gene. CCR5-Delta32 was discovered in 1996. Since then, several large epidemiological studies of people with clinically-defined AIDS have revealed that the CCR5-Delta32 allele, when inherited from both parents, confers nearly complete genetic resistance to HIV infection, even in individuals who are at extremely high risk of infection. A few CCR5-Delta32 homozygotes have become infected -- usually with the T-tropic, late-stage form of HIV -- but this occurrence is extremely rare. Individuals who inherit the CCR5-Delta32 allele from only one parent do become infected with HIV, but in such individuals the onset of AIDS-defining illness is postponed for two to four years longer than it is in individuals without the mutational variant. Also, it was shown that CCR5-Delta32 slows disease progression in children born to HIV-infected mothers.

(Posted by Iman)

Posted:Monday, March 03, 2003 | 

God bless people who made and developed " SPSS software" . These days I am studying the " Statistical Methods " by " George W. Snedecor and William G. Cochran " . Though it is a wonderful book, it has lengthy and difficult calculations. By SPSS I just enter the variables and push a button. It is said that computer makes smart students stupid. But what should do a stupid student?!

( posted by Iman)


Posted:Monday, March 03, 2003 | 

" Dress fashion " in Iranian and, of course, Islamic way!!


Via " Hoder"

(posted by Iman)
Posted:Sunday, March 02, 2003 |