Animation In Support Of Iran's Baha'is

A new animated campaign aims to raise awareness about rights abuses against those following the Baha'i faith in Iran.

The campaign, run by the Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights, was the brainchild of Esra'a al-Shafei, a 22-year-old woman from Bahrain who won a prestigious award for her Internet projects from Harvard University last year.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda she said, "I created the Muslim Network for Baha'i Rights because I knew that I wasn't going to be the only Muslim who believes in this. Soon we started gathering Muslims from all over the world who are speaking up for Baha'i human rights, in the name of Islam."

"If even more Muslims committed to this, Baha'is will no longer be discriminated against this widely and violence against them will cease to be justified by either governments or our societies at large," she said.

Al-Shafei said that she used animation for her campaign because “it's attention grabbing and interesting, and helps us reach our target audience better.

"We live in an age today where people are bored with content. There is a massive war of information online, and everyone is struggling to be heard and noticed, so we have to resort to creative ideas in order to ensure that some people are still listening to us.”

-- Arash Alborzi