On Sunday, December 14: A diverse audience gathered at the Township of Langley Civic Center, 20338 65th Avenue, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The event was cosponsored by the Muriel Arnason Library and the Baha’i Community of Langley.
Dr. Trevor McMorris Tate, a board member of the Greater Seattle UNA-USA Chapter, and Langley resident, gave a thought-provoking talk entitled “Human Rights Today: A Report Card”. The program also included two films, “A Question of Rights-The UN Declaration,” recalling the drafting and adoption of the historic 1948 UN Declaration, and “Mona,” a heart-rending dramatization about a courageous 17 year old young Baha’i woman who, with eight other women, was hanged by the Iranian authorities for teaching children’s classes.
Two local Baha’is of Iranian descent gave moving personal accounts of the persecution of family members for their Baha’i beliefs. Langley City resident Shahamat Atefi spoke emotionally about his father who was killed in Iran in the early 1980s when he was only a year old; likewise, Langley township resident Bijan Rasti recounted the story of his uncle who was arrested without warning and imprisoned for four years in Iran for refusing to recant his Baha’i Faith.
A most moving moment was when Mr. Rasti displayed exquisitely crafted prayer beads and a necklace that his uncle gave to him as a gift after his release from prison. He said his uncle had painstakingly filed and polished numerous date pits on the cement floor of his cell during the years of solitary confinement, using them to make the items and then dying them with the dregs from his teacup.
Much discussion and reflection followed during the reception on the serious and appalling human rights abuses that continue in the world today, and the challenges that still lie ahead to achieve the promises and hopes of the 1948 Declaration, sixty years on.
The event was chaired by Langley anthropologist, Dr. Marg Dorazio-Migliore, and the Township of Langley was represented by Councillor Mel Kositsky.
