June 16, 2008 - 11:35am

U.S. Bahá’í UN representative Jeffery Huffines received a Friendship Award for his work “promoting cultural understanding throughout the world and at the UN Headquarters” and for serving as a “positive, guiding force” to all.

The award was given at the United Cultures Peace Festival & Concert on June 12 and presented by His Excellence Gabor Brodi, the Hungarian Ambassador to the UN. Mr. Huffines has served as the U.S. Bahá'í UN representative since 1996.

Erin Murphy-Graham of the University of California, Berkeley, speaks at the workshop on the SAT program at the U.N. on 8 May 2008.

UNITED NATIONS, — A Bahá’í-inspired program that has trained thousands of people in Honduras and Colombia to contribute to rural development was highlighted as a model for sustainable development at a major U.N. meeting this month.

The program, known as SAT -- an acronym for Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (Tutorial Learning System) -- was presented in a three-hour workshop during the 16th session of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development, held 5-16 May at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Toronto, Ontario, 19 December 2007 (CBNS) — The Bahá'í Community of Canada’s national governing body, the National Spiritual Assembly, expressed its appreciation today of the adoption of a strong resolution yesterday by the United Nations General Assembly calling attention to the human rights situation in Iran. The resolution calls attention to the ongoing, systematic persecution of the Bahá'ís of that country. The resolution was put forward by Canada and co-sponsored by 41 other countries.

The Bahá'í World News Service report on the passage of the resolution follows:

UNITED NATIONS, 19 December 2007 (BWNS) -- The United Nations General Assembly yesterday adopted a resolution expressing "deep concern" about "ongoing systematic violations of human rights" in Iran.

Adopted by a final vote of 73 to 53, with 55 abstentions, the resolution took note of repression and persecution aimed by the Iranian government at groups ranging from women and women's rights defenders to the news media and labor groups, as well as various ethnic and religious minorities, including Baha'is.

Human Rights Day 2007 sees the launch of a year-long campaign to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2008. Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has written:

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Canadian Bahá’ís were pleased to see the passage, at the United Nations yesterday, of a strongly worded resolution calling attention to systematic human rights abuse in Iran. The resolution refers directly in two places to the ongoing persecution of Bahá’ís.