The U.S. Department of State has issued the following statement about the recent arrests:

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom today called for strong international condemnation of the arrest of Baha’i leaders in Iran.

On May 14, Iranian intelligence officials arrested six Baha’i leaders and took them to the notorious Evin prison. The imprisonments are ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Baha’i leaders were summarily rounded up and subsequently executed.

April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the "Women, Faith and Abuse" segment of the April 3 Interfaith Voices radio program includes Layli Miller-Muro telling how the Baha'i Faith inspired her to establish the Tahirih Justice Center. The organization, based in Falls Church, Va., provides legal support for women and girls who have experienced sexual abuse and violence.

Violence against women and girls represents a global problem with great health, economic development, and human rights implications. At least one out of every three women and girls worldwide experience violence or abuse in her lifetime, according to the World Health Organization. Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation, a public health epidemic, and a barrier to solving global challenges, such as extreme poverty and armed conflict.

The Baha'i-inspired Tahirih Justice Center, known for its human rights work, has received recognition of another kind: The 10-year-old organization recently was given the 2007 Washington Post Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management.

In a letter to Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's ambassador to the United States, U.S. representatives Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) express disappointment at a recent decision by the Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court to deny Baha'is the right to document their religion on official documents.

Patricia Locke, who died in 2001 at age 73, was a ground-breaking worker for the education of American Indians and one of 10 women inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2005.

Locke was a Baha'i, and the first American Indian woman to serve on the National Spiritual Assembly, the administrative governing body for Baha'is of the United States. She was of Lakota and Chippewa heritage and played a leading role in the founding of 17 tribally run colleges in the United States. She also was an influential advocate for the passage of federal laws increasing Indian tribes' autonomy over their children's education.

A statement by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States - published in 2002