BBC World Service – Baha’i Faith in Egypt

I just stumbled across this website from a friend. It is the online audio-stream of an excellent radio programme by BBC World Service the producers of ‘Heart & Soul‘, it covers the situation of the Baha’is in Egypt given recent events over ID Cards which put their faith in the media’s spotlight. It also gives a personal account of the Baha’i Faith through interviewing Egyptian citizens. The following is an extract from the BBC’s website:

Listen to Heart and Soul

There are about seven million Bahais living in more than two hundred countries around the world. The faith first arrived in Egypt in the 1860s, and was recognised as a religion. But now the Bahais are struggling to assert their rights as Egyptian citizens. As the small community of Bahais prepare to celebrate their New Year this week, Eva Dadrian finds out about their religion, and why they are facing daily discrimination.

When the Egyptian government introduced new computerised Identity Cards, it fored its citizens to choose from only 3 religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To get ID cards, followers of Bahai are now having to lie about their religion. Heart and Soul finds out how they are trying to fight to gain recognition for their Bahai faith.

(Use Realplayer to listen)

This is not the first time that the show has featured the Baha’i Faith in its content, and I have blogged about it previously here.