Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-03

MR PRIOR: Thank you Mrs Anvari, I am going to lead you and there is nothing that you say, I don't think that much of what you say is in contention so, with permission from my learned friend, and the Committee, I am just going to get some background for you.
	It is common cause, we understand that you are a member of the Bahai Faith Mission, your late husband was a member of the Bahai Faith Mission and you were friendly with the other two deceased, is that correct?

DINA ANVARI: Very well.

MR PRIOR: And their names being, can you just put those on record?

DINA ANVARI: It was, my husband was Hushman Anvari, his friend was Rios Razavi and the other friend was Chamaam Bacshanderi.

MR PRIOR: The Doctor Bacshanderi, was he a Doctor at the hospital at ...

DINA ANVARI: He was a Doctor at Cecilia Makawane, he was a dentist.

MR PRIOR: A dentist?

DINA ANVARI: Yes.

MR PRIOR: And your husband?

DINA ANVARI: My husband was a computer sales technician.

MR PRIOR: Where was he working at the time?

DINA ANVARI: He was working in East London.

MR PRIOR: And I have difficulty with the name, Mr Razavi, he was at the University, is that correct of Fort Hare?

DINA ANVARI: He was a Director of Finance at the University of Fort Hare.

MR PRIOR: Could you possibly just for the benefit of the Committee, briefly describe what was the Bahai Faith Mission about, and what was it doing in Mdantsane at the time, it was during 1994?

DINA ANVARI: Okay.  Well, the basic principles of the Bahai faith, is based on three oneness, a oneness of God, oneness of religion and a oneness of humanity.
	The Bahai Faith since 1911, has been part of, has been established in South Africa and it has been basically teaching its teachings to the people since 1911, but up to the election I suppose, we were obscure in a way because our teachings based on oneness of humanity did not necessarily coincide with the system of the government of the time, and being Bahai's we do obey the government of every country that we live in.
	We abide by their laws, not necessarily moralities, but by their laws, and therefore we kept basically all our religious activities in such a way that it does not interfere what the government asks us.
	However, in Ciskei and Transkei we never had any problems in that terms, and most of the Bahai, I mean all the Bahai meetings in those countries, were very much mixed.  Although even in South Africa we had, Bahai meetings were integrated fully.  We had less problems, let's say, in Ciskei and Transkei.
	The Bahai Faith is not a mission, it is a faith.  It is a religion based on you know, oneness of God, it is a religion along the same major religions of the world, like Christianity and Islam.  Its inception was in 1844 and it is only 150 some years old, however, according to the Britannica World Book, after Christianity it is the most widespread religion throughout the world.
	The Bahai administration is in such a way that it starts from a local spiritual assembly in each city, we have a local spiritual assembly which is made of nine people, whoever is voted for, the invitation to go to Mdantsane was from the local spiritual assembly of Bahai's of Mdantsane.
	At every country we have a national spiritual assembly of the Bahai's of that country, which we have a national spiritual assembly here in South Africa.  As a world governing body, we have a universal house of justice which rules basically all the Bahai world, internationally.
	Therefore our basic objective to be in anywhere around the world, to spread the teachings of Bahala, which is based on unity of mankind, world peace, unity of - bringing people together, abolition of all kinds of prejudices, including the racial prejudice, gender, class, creed, any kind of prejudices, so Africa, South Africa seemed to be a very, very good place to be at the time, and is still going to be, because we believe in working on individuals, bringing dignity, faith, confidence, spiritual upliftment to the people underground, these are the people that are important.
	Those are the people we work with.  Political systems have their own systems, and they bring empowerment to people in their own way and fine, that is perfectly okay.  We believe in individuals and empowerment through spiritual growth, that comes from within.
	And that is what basically we were here and we are here, to do.

MR PRIOR: Now, the church in Mdantsane, we have seen photographs of the church, the church building.  Just correct me, your husband and your friends, did you live, you never lived in Mdantsane?

DINA ANVARI: No, we lived in East London and my, we all lived in King William's Town, Chamaam also was in East London.

MR PRIOR: Who, forgive my ignorance, was there a pastor or a parish priest or a manager or whatever leader of the specific church in Mdantsane?

DINA ANVARI: I am sorry, I think we try to understand, you know, the difference comes when we say church.  We don't have a church, it is a centre.  We don't have clergy or basically older Bahai activities are run by the spiritual assemblies of that local area, city, which was at the time the Bahai Centre was run by the local, actually it was a national centre so it was run by the national spiritual centre of Bahai's of Ciskei at the time, because it was considered to be a country at the time.
	So it was run by them, although my husband was asked to basically take care of the upkeeping, you know, in any terms.

MR PRIOR: The financial running?

DINA ANVARI: No, managerial part of it.  You know, basically painting, taking care of the grass and all kinds of little ...

MR PRIOR: Maintenance of the property?

DINA ANVARI: Maintenance, yes.

MR PRIOR: Just briefly, what sort of programmes were carried out amongst the community of Bahai?

DINA ANVARI: You mean as far as ...

MR PRIOR: As the Centre, at the Centre, what sort of ...

DINA ANVARI: For the community of for its own Bahai meetings?

MR PRIOR: Firstly for its own members?

DINA ANVARI: Well, basically we have every 19 days, what we call a feast.  When I say it is not regular, that is exactly what we mean, because you have to know what the Bahai calender is about, so you would know when the 19 days is, in order to know.
	Then we have the spiritual assembly meetings, which is basically the nine people that are members of the spiritual assembly.  We have basically, then regular meetings, children classes and those things that if you could say anything regular, would be the children classes, which is on Sunday, but it is basically a teacher from Mdantsane who would go and teach the children.

MR PRIOR: Now, you indicated in a question put to the last applicant, Mr Mbambo, that two weeks before the actual attack on the Bahai Centre, there were about 50 members of Bahai who they would have regarded as white people.

DINA ANVARI: Yes.

MR PRIOR: Were present there?