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Search for tag "Persecution, Education"

from the chronology

date event locations tags see also
1934 (In the year) The government of Iran took several measures against the Bahá’ís throughout the country. [BW18p389]
  • Nineteen Bahá’í schools are closed in Káshán, Qazvín, Yazd, Najafábád, Ábádih and elsewhere. [ARG109]
  • Bahá’í meetings were forbidden in many towns, including Tihrán, Mashhad, Sabzivár, Qazvín and Arák.
  • Bahá’ís centres in Káshán, Hamadán and Záhidán were closed by the authorities.
  • Some Bahá’í government employees were dismissed.
  • Some Bahá’í military personnel were stripped of their rank and imprisoned.
  • Bahá’ís in many places were harassed over the filling-in of marriage certificates, census forms and other legal documents.
    		•  Iran; Kashan; Qazvin; Yazd; Najafabad; Abadih; Tihran; Mashhad; Sabzivar; Arak; Hamadan; Zahidan Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution, Other; Persecution; Tarbiyat School; Bahai schools
    1945 (In the year) Bahá’ís throughout Iran were dismissed from National Teacher Training Colleges by the National Board of Education. [BW18p390] Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution
    1955 Sep-Oct Bahá’ís in Iran continued to be dismissed from their employment. Bahá’í students were expelled from Shíráz University. [BW18p391] Shiraz; Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Other; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Haziratul-Quds
    1968 – 1969 Throughout Iran, pressure on Bahá’ís intensified. [BW18p391]
  • Applications for government employment were refused. [BW18:391]
  • Bahá’ís were refused admission to colleges and universities. [BW18:391]
  • Bahá’í centres were closed. [BW18:391]<
  • Individual Bahá’ís were attacked. [BW18:391]
    		• Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Other; Persecution, Education; Persecution
    1979 Oct In Iran, Bahá’ís in the ministries of education, health and social administration were dismissed from their jobs. [BW18:255] Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Other; Persecution; persecution, Persecution, Education
    1983 18 Jun In Shiraz, ten Bahá'í women ranging in age from 17 to 57, were hanged. All of the women had been tortured and interrogated in the months prior to their execution. The youngest of these martyrs was Mona Mahmudnizhad, a 17-year-old schoolgirl who had been beaten on the soles of her feet, kissed the hands of her executioner and placed the hangman's rope around her own throat. The names of the others executed were Zarrin Muqimi-Abyanih, 28, Ruya Ishraqi, a 23-year-old veterinary student, Shahin Dalvand, 25, a sociologist; Izzat Janami Ishraqi, 57, a homemaker; Mahshid Nirumand, 28, who had qualified for a degree in physics but had it denied her because she was a Bahá'í, Simin Sabiri, 25; Tahirih Arjumandi Siyavushi, 30, a nurse; Akhtar Thabit, 25, also a nurse; Nusrat Ghufrani Yalda'i, 47, a mother and member of the local Bahá'í Spiritual Assembly. [Hanged for teaching “Sunday school”]
  • For the story of the martyrs see BW19:180–7 and VV56.
  • For their obituaries see BW19:596–607.
  • For pictures of the martyred women see BW19:240–1.
  • See World Order magazine Vol 4 Issue 3, 1986 for an article on Zarrin Muqimi-Abyanih written by her sister Simin Khavari.
  • See Bahá'í Teachings for the story of Nusrat Yalda’i, a mother of four children, three sons and one daughter, who was executed for her hospitality.
  • See Track Persia dated 25 January 2020 for an account of how female prisoners have been treated in Iranian prisons since the Islamic Revolution.
  • In 1985 a 45-page booklet entitled The Story of Mona: 1965-1983 was published by Bahá'î Canada Publications, under the auspices of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Canada.
  • Also in 1985 a music video called Mona and Children was made by Douglas John Cameron and friends.
  • In 2003 a play, A New Dress for Mona by Mark Perry was produced by the Drama Circle.
  • Lenz entertainment produced a screenplay entitled Mona's Dream. It was written by Houshang Touzie and Jack Lenz and won the 2010 Female Eye Audience Choice Screenplay Award. Facebook.
  • In June of 2017 the book, Our Friend Mona: The Remarkable Life of a Young Martyr by Azadeh Rohanian Perry and Mark E Perry (with the assistance of Mona's mother, Mrs. Farkhundih Mahmudnizhad) was published by Circle of Spirit.
    		• Shiraz; Iran Martyrs, Shiraz 1983; Mona Mahmudnizhad; Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Deaths; Persecution; Youth; persecution, Persecution, Education; Shahin Dalvand; Izzat Janami Ishraqi; Mahshid Nirumand; Simin Sabiri; Tahirih Arjumandi Siyavushi; Akhtar Thabit; Nusrat Ghufrani Yaldai; Zarrin Muqimi-Abyanih; Ruya Ishraqi
    1987 (In the year) Faced with unrelenting religious persecution involving a wide range of human rights violations, the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was founded in response to the Iranian government's continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá'ís access to higher education.
  • See BIHE Website.
  • BIHE developed several unique features which have become its defining strengths. Courses were delivered at the outset by correspondence, soon complemented by in-person classes and tutoring. Later on, leading-edge communication and education technologies were included. In addition, an affiliated global faculty (AGF) was established that comprised of hundreds of accredited professors from universities outside Iran who assisted BIHE as researchers, teachers and consultants.
  • The BIHE was to evolve such that it could offer 38 university-level programs across 5 faculties and continued to develop and deliver academic programs in Sciences, Engineering, Business and Management, Humanities, and Social Sciences. It provided and continues to provide its students with the necessary knowledge and skills to not only persevere and succeed in their academic and professional pursuits, but to be active agents of change for the betterment of the world.
  • The BIHE's commitment to high academic standards, international collaboration and its innovative teaching-learning environment has been increasingly recognized as graduates excelled in post graduate studies internationally. [See list] These unique strengths of BIHE, together with the top-ranking marks of its students, have helped secure its graduates places at over 87 prestigious universities and colleges in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia (India). [Closed Doors, Chapter IV; BIHE]
  • See the statement The Bahá'í Institute Of Higher Education: A Creative And Peaceful Response To Religious Persecution In Iran presented by the Bahá'í International Community to the 55th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights under Agenda item 10 of the provisional agenda: "The Right to Education" in Geneva, 22 March - 30 April 1999.
  • See Iran Wire 20 January 2023 for the notice of passing of Dr Parviz Javid, one of the three professors who are credited with founding the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education.
    		• Iran Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Other; Persecution; Human Rights; Education; persecution, Persecution, Education; BIC statements
    1991 25 Feb In Iran, a secret government memorandum (known as the Golpaygani Memorandum) was drawn up by Iran's Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and signed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, which provided a blueprint of the policies and actions to which the Bahá'í community of Iran was to be subjugated. The memorandum demanded a shift in Iran's stance towards Bahá'ís from overt persecution to a more covert policy aimed at depleting the Iranian Bahá'í community's economic and cultural resources. This was a change in the policy for the Islamic regime which had openly persecuted and killed Bahá'ís during its first decade in power and had accused them of being spies for various foreign powers. The document also called for “countering and destroying their [Bahá'ís] cultural roots abroad.” [Iran Press Watch 1407]
    Signed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the memorandum established a subtle government policy aimed at essentially grinding the community into nonexistence by:
  • forcing Bahá'í children to have a strong Islamic education,
  • pushing Bahá'í adults into the economic periphery and forcing them from all positions of power or influence, and
  • requiring that Bahá'í youth "be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Bahá'ís." [One Country; Iran Press Watch 1578]
  • The memorandum can be found here, here and here.
  • This document might have remained secret had it not been divulged to Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the Salvadoran diplomat who served as the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran between 1986 and 1995. Professor Pohl disclosed the document in 1993 during a session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (now replaced by the Human Rights Council). [BWNS575]
    		• Iran; United States Golpaygani Memorandum; Ayatollah Khamenei; Ayatollahs; Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Other; Persecution; Human rights; United Nations; Persecution, education; BWNS; Bahai International Community
    1998 Feb The Bahá’í Open University resumed activities after the seizure of much of their assets four months earlier by the Iranian government.

    The institute seemed to be a relatively safe alternative for non-Islamic students until this time when Iranian government agents arrested 36 BIHE faculty members. The Bahá'ís set up a network of more than 45 private libraries in Baha'i homes so that students could access textbooks discreetly. Raids occurring in 1998 led to officials seizing some of these libraries along with many of the photocopiers used to distribute assignments. [The Borgen Magazine 14 November 2021]

  • It is estimated that by 1998 the BIHE had approximately 150 professors and 900 students. ["Others" In Their Own Land 41min 39sec]
    		• Iran Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution
    1998 21 Jul Mr. Ruhu'llah Rawhani, a 52-year-old medical supplies salesman was hanged in Mashhad solely for religious reasons. Later that morning, Mr. Rawhani's family was summoned to collect his body and required, despite their protests, to complete the burial within one hour, under the supervision of Government intelligence agents.
  • In 1984, Mr. Rawhani was arrested and imprisoned for more than a year. According to an account given by Mr. Rawhani's relatives in the Australian Bahá'í News, Mr. Rawhani was tortured during his first imprisonment. He was arrested a second time in the mid 1990's. The charge was apparently related to his work in the conduct of purely religious activities, such as prayer meetings and children's classes. He was released after 24 hours.
  • Mr. Rawhani was arrested for a third time in September 1997 and placed in solitary confinement in Mashhad. He had been accused of "converting" a woman from Islam to the Bahá'í Faith. The woman, however, denied that she had converted; she explained that her mother was a Bahá'í and that she herself had been raised as a Bahá'í. She was not arrested.
  • The killing of Mr. Rawhani was the first government execution of a Bahá'í in Iran in six years, and was coupled with the widespread arrest of some 32 Bahá'í educators in fourteen different cities throughout Iran in late September and early October. From the Daily Telegraph, August 2nd 1998. [One Country Jul-Sep 1998 Vol 10 Issue 2, One Country Oct-Dec 1998 Vol 10 Issue 3, Archives of Bahá'í Persecution in Iran]
  • See the message from the Universal House of Justice dated 29 September, 1998.
  • See the website of the Rowhani Bahá'í School that was established in the town of Luganville in Vanuatu in his memory. It began in 1999 with 7 students in small room above a stationary store and now (2021) has about 230 students from K to year 10.
    		•  Mashhad; Iran; Luganville; Vanuatu Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Arrests; Persecution, Deaths; Persecution; persecution, Persecution, Education; Rowhani Bahai School
    1998 29 Sep Starting this date until October 2nd, in Iran, the government raided some 500 private homes and the arrested some 30 faculty members in efforts to close the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education, a decentralized university that aimed to give Bahá’í students access to the education they have been otherwise denied.
  • The Institute offered Bachelor's degrees in ten subject areas: applied chemistry, biology, dental science, pharmacological science, civil engineering, computer science, psychology, law, literature, and accounting. Within these subject areas, which were administered by five "departments," the Institute was able to offer more than 200 distinct courses each term.
  • In the beginning, courses were based on correspondence lessons developed by Indiana University, which was one of the first institutions in the West to recognize the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education. Later on, course offerings were developed internally.
  • Teaching was done principally via correspondence, or, for specialized scientific and technical courses and in other special cases, in small-group classes that were usually held in private homes. Over time, however, the Institute was able to establish a few laboratories, operated in privately owned commercial buildings in and around Teheran, for computer science, physics, dental science, pharmacology, applied chemistry, and language study. The operations of these laboratories were kept prudently quiet, with students cautioned not to come and go in large groups that might give the authorities a reason to object.
  • Among other significant human rights conventions, Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966. Parties to this Covenant "recognize the right of everyone to education" and more specifically that "higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means." [“The New York Times” article dated 29 October 1998, One Country Oct-Dec 1998 Vol 10 Issue 3]
  • On the 29th of October, 2019, IranWire featured a story on the BIHE and one of its graduates, Pedram Roushan, a physicist originally from Sari in Mazandaran province. On the 28th of August 2020 Pedram Roushan was featured in another IranWire article about his work with the Google Artificial Intelligence Quantum team. They had just published an article called Hartree-Fock on a superconducting qubit quantum computer in "Science Magazine".
    		• Iran Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Human Rights; Education; Persecution, Education; Pedram Roushan;
    1999 19 Apr The Islamic Revolutionary Court in Isfahan sentenced Sina Hakiman (10 yrs), Farzad Khajeh Sharifabadi (7 yrs), Havivullhh Ferdosian Najafabadi (7 yrs) and Ziaullah Mirzapanah (3yrs) for crimes against national security. All four were among the thirty-six who were arrested in late September and in early October, 1998 in a concerted government crackdown against Bahá’í education in fourteen cities in Iran.
  • It was reported that over 500 homes were raided in an attempt to crack down on the Bahá’í Open University. Files, equipment and other property used by the University were seized. From report by Human Rights Watch Academic Freedom Committee.
    		•  Isfahan; Iran Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution, Court cases; Persecution; Court cases; Human Rights; Education Find ref
    2005 29 Oct Letter from the Iranian military headquarters to various Revolutionary Guard and police forces and security agencies instructing them to identify and monitor Bahá'ís around the country. [BWNS473]
  • A copy of the letter can be obtained from the BIC website.
  • This document was authored by Major General Seyyed Hassan Firuzabadi in his capacity as Chief of the Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Iran. His letter was addressed to a range of military and security agencies, including the Commander of the Revolutionary Guard, the Commander of Basij militia, the Commander of Law Enforcement and the Commander of the Armed Forces inter alia. The letter instructed these agencies to ‘acquire a comprehensive and complete report of all the activities of these sects (including political, economic, social and cultural) for the purpose of identifying all the individuals of these misguided sects. Therefore, we request that you convey to relevant authorities to, in a highly confidential manner, collect any and all information about the above mentioned activities of these individuals and report it to this Headquarters.’ This extended to children and students, and individual children and young people are identified by their religious beliefs and targeted for ideological harassment, exclusion from education, abuse and even physical assault on some occasions. [See: Faith and a Future]
    		•  Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Human rights; Persecution, Education; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Human rights; Faith and a Future (CSW)
    2006 - 2007 (academic year) For more than two decades young Bahá’ís had been barred from entering university through an application process that required them to deny their faith. Though a modification in the process, achieved through worldwide public pressure, enabled a few hundred to register at the start of the 2006–2007 academic year, their hopes of pursuing higher education were soon dashed because that same year a confidential letter sent from Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology instructed Iranian universities to expel any student who was discovered to be a Bahá'í. The letter refuted previous statements by Iranian officials who had said Bahá'í students in Iran faced no discrimination. [BWNS575]
  • The English translation of the letter.
    		• Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Higher education; Human rights; Bahai International Community
    2006 21 Dec The Education Department Management Security Office in Shiraz circulated a form to be completed by all students who belonged to religious minorities and the "perverse Bahaist sect". The form required not only detailed information about the student and his or her parents, but also detailed information on all the student's siblings. [Provisional Translation of the text of the letter] Shiraz; Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution
    2007 17 Mar In a confidential letter from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology to the Central Security Office of Payám-i-Núr University in the Province of Sístán and Balúchistán, they instructed that Bahá’í applicants for the Farágír (preparatory] courses be prevented from enrollment and that the names of those who do try to enrol to be forwarded to their office. [English translation] Iran Persecution, education
    2007 18 May A letter marked "Confidential" was sent from the academic counseling and higher education office at Guilán University to the director of university academic affairs, asking for the immediate discharge of a Bahá'í student stating that she was legally banned from continuing her education.
  • English translation of the letter of the 18 May, 2007.
  • English translation of the reply dated the 27 May, 2007 stating that the said student had been been "disqualified" from studying at Guilan, as required by the 1991 Golpaygani memorandum.
    		• Guilan; Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education
    2007 2 Oct An event was organized by the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran to publicize the plight of all those who are deprived of access to education. The Bahá'ís were only one of many groups whose situations the event highlighted. The Bahá'í representative made a 5-10 minute presentation describing the difficult circumstances faced by Bahá'í students, who have persistently been denied access to post-secondary education. Journalists from within the country and abroad covered the proceedings. [The reference website is no longer in existence.] Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution
    2007 21 Nov The Universal House of Justice responded to a communications from the Bahá'ís attending event of the 2nd of October advising the Friends in Iran to explore contacts with other Iranian individuals and organizations sympathetic to the plight of the Bahá'ís and to continue the effort to secure legal representation for the Bahá'í students. It also encouraged them to convey the gratitude of the Iranian Bahá'ís to the Defenders of Human Rights Centre. [The referenced website is no longer in existence.] Iran Universal House of Justice; Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution
    2008 27 Jul The results of the nationwide university entrance examination were made available on the National Organization for Educational Assessment in Iran. Most of the Bahá'í applicants found that they were rejected and received an "incomplete file" message. For the 2007-2008 academic year some 800 of 1000 Bahá'í students were rejected in the same manner. [Iranian, BWNS657] Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; BWNS
    2008 Nov Ameed Saadat sat Iran's 2008 national university entrance examination. He passed was accepted to study hotel management at Goldasht College in Kelardasht, Mazandaran, and began his studies. The college's registration form required students to identify their religion. Ameed, being honest had identified himself as a Bahá'í. The day before his first-term examinations were to begin the college director told Ameed that he was being expelled and would therefore not be allowed to sit the examinations. The following day, 26 students refused to take the end-of-term exam in protest against Ameed's expulsion. [Iran Press Watch] Kelardasht; Mazandaran; Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Human rights; Higher education
    2011 May Some 39 homes of Bahá'ís associated with the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) were raided in a coordinated attack. Educator Kamran Mortezaie served a five-year jail term. Mahmoud Badavam, Noushin Khadem, Farhad Sedghi, Riaz Sobhani and Ramin Zibaie were each sentenced to four year prison terms. The judgments against them cast their activities in support of BIHE as crimes and as “evidence” of their purported aim to subvert the state. Two psychology teachers, Faran Hesami and her husband Kamran Rahimian, were also sentenced to four years in prison. Another BIHE administrator Vahid Mahmoudi was released on 8 January 2012 after his five-year sentence was reportedly suspended. [BWNS910] Iran Persecution, Iran; Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Education
    2011 24 Sep The arrest of Abdolfattah Soltani, a senior member of the legal team (4 lawyers) representing a number of Bahá'ís in Iran awaiting trial for providing higher education to youth barred from university. Soltani is a co-founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, along with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi and others. The Tehran-based Centre was shut down in a police raid in December 2008. [BWNS849]
  • In 2008 when Shirin Ebadi took the defense of seven Bahá'ís she was accused of changing her religion and her law office was attacked and faced other problems. [Iran Press Watch]
  • U.S Bahá'í Office of Public Affairs Press Release.
  • See interview with Mr Soltani by Iran Press Watch.
    		•  Iran Abdolfattah Soltani; Lawyers; Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution; Human Rights; Education; BWNS; Yaran; Persecution, Education
    2012 11 May The Universal House of Justice sent a message to the Bahá'ís of Iran near the four-year anniversary of the illegal arrest and imprisonment of the former members of the Yárán and the more recent injustice meted out against the co-workers of the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). [BWNS823, Message from the Universal House of Justice dated 11 May, 2012, In Farsi] Iran Yaran; Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Other; Persecution; UHJ; BWNS; persecution; Persecution, Education
    2013 15 Jul Iranian filmmaker and blogger as well as a former Islamist hardliner who has become an outspoken critic of the government, Mohammad Nourizad, kissed the feet of 4 year old Artin whose parents had been arrested for participation in the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education. [Wikipedia entry; Faith and a Future p38-39]
  • Some years later Mr Nourizad repeated this gesture, kissing the feet of a six year old boy named Bashir whose parents, Azita Rafizadeh and Peyman Kushak Baghi had been sentenced to four year prison terms for teaching at the BIHE.
    		• Iran Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Human Rights; Education; Mohammad Nourizad
    2014 Sep The exclusion of Shadan Shirazi, an exemplary student who placed exceptionally well in the college entrance exams administered to students throughout Iran. The Iranian government deployed new tactics in their treatment of Bahá'í students to deny them access to higher education without raising the concern of the international community. The new procedure entailed identifying Bahá'í university applicants and then calling them in so they could quietly be confirmed as ineligible under the government's unjust policies and then be sent away without any documentation or proof that it was done because they were Bahá'ís that they were prevented from enrolling. [BWNS1021] Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; BWNS
    2015 27 Feb The premiere of the film To Light a Candle by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker and journalist, Maziar Mahari. The gala in Los Angeles was part of a campaign called "Education is Not a Crime", started in 2014, to highlight the plight of Bahá'í students in Iran and their recourse to the denial of education, the Bahá'í Institute of Higher Education. The film was also screened in some 300 locations around the world. [BWNS1041, BWNS1025]
  • See also Not a Crime.
    		• Los Angeles; United States Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Documentaries; Education is not a Crime; BWNS; Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE)
    2017 5 May The film Changing the World, One Wall at a Time was premiered in Harlem on the 5th of May and in Los Angeles on the 5th of June. The film evolved from shorter videos that were posted from the "Education is not a Crime" campaign and was made by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Maziar Baharie. [BWNS1173]
  • The film Changing the World, One Wall at a Time.
    		•  Harlem; New York; Los Angeles; California; United States Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Documentaries; Education is not a Crime; BWNS; Changing the World, One Wall at a Time
    2017 near the end of Oct Fariba Kamalabadi, a member of the former leadership group of the Bahá'ís called the "Yaran", concluded her ten-year prison sentence. She was the second individual from among the former Yaran to be released. She, along with five others, were arrested on the 14th of May, 2008.
  • Mrs. Kamalabadi had graduated from high school with honours but was barred from attending university because of her Faith. In her mid-30s, she embarked on an eight-year period of informal study and ultimately received an advanced degree in developmental psychology from the Bahá’í Institute of Higher Education (BIHE), an alternative institution established by the Bahá’í community of Iran to provide higher education for its young people. She worked as a developmental psychologist before her arrest and imprisonment. She was married with three children. Along with the deprivations of imprisonment itself (she had spent 2 1/2 years of the 10-year sentence in solitary confinement), Mrs. Kamalabadi was also deprived of irreplaceable family moments, including the birth of her first grandchild and the weddings of her daughters. She was 55 years old upon her release. [BWNS1217]
  • See Huffington Post for an article entitled "Iran’s Bahá'í Problem" by Payam Akhavan about the visit of Ms. Faezeh Hashemi, the well-known daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who made a visit to her home while she was on leave from prison.
  • Ms Hashemi, herself a former MP, was heavily criticized after she met with Ms Kamalabadi while the latter was on leave from prision. See the article in The Guardian for details.
    		• Tihran; Iran Yaran; Persecution, Iran; Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE); Court cases; Persecution, Other; Persecution; Human rights; Persecution, Education; Court cases; BWNS
    2017. 4 Nov Three young Iranians who complained to state officials after being denied university entrance for being followers of the Bahá'í Faith have each been sentenced to five years in prison. Rouhieh Safajoo (21), Sarmad Shadabi (22), and Tara Houshmand (21) were convicted of the charges of “membership in the anti-state Bahá'í cult” and “publishing falsehoods.” [IFMAT 14NOV17] Tihran; Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Education; Persecution, Court cases; Persecution
    2018 Feb Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), an NGO working to promote the right to freedom of religion or belief of all and raising awareness about the persecution of Christians and other religious groups around the world, published a shocking report that revealed the influence of religious persecution on religious minority children. In its Faith and a Future report, CSW focused on the situation of religious minority children in educational settings in Burma, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan. The report scrutinized three common acts of persecution in the educational setting specifically bias, discrimination and abuse.
  • In Iran, bias can be seen across various educational materials in the country. School textbooks were focused on the Shi’a Muslim perspective and were silent on any other religions. This had an adverse effect on religious minorities. Children belonging to the Bahá'í religion were denied access to schools and often access to higher education. Bahá'í children that were lucky to be enrolled in schools were not free to learn or partake in their religious belief. According to the CSW report, a memorandum from the Iran government stated that Bahá'í children ‘should be enrolled in schools which have a strong and imposing religious [Shi’a] ideology.’ The situation for children partaking in higher education is no better. According to Article 3 of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council’s student qualification regulations (1991), students were to be expelled if they were found to be Bahá'í. Only Muslim or students belonging to recognized religions were allowed to take the national enrolment exam. The report further alleged that some Bahá'í children had been subjected to physical abuse at schools. [Iran Press Watch 18838]
    		•  Iran Persecution, Iran; Persecution, Human rights; Persecution, Education; Persecution, Education; Persecution; Human rights; Faith and a Future (CSW)

    from the main catalogue

    1. Bahá'í-Inspired Perspectives on Human Rights (2001). Articles by Kiser Barnes, Greg Duly, Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims, Graham Hassall, Darren Hedley, Nazila Ghanea-Hercock, Chichi Layor, Michael Penn, Martha Schweitz, and Albert Lincoln. [about]
    2. Faith Denied, A: The Persecution of the Bahá'ís of Iran, by Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (2006). The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center's account of persecutions of Bahá'ís of Iran (2006). [about]
    3. Redefining Resiliency, Resistance, and Oppression: A Case Study of the Bahá'i Underground University in Iran, by Kimiya Tahirih Missaghi (2021). On the nature of resiliency in a systematically oppressed population; the existence and growth of the Bahá'í Institute of Higher Education exemplify perseverance and resistance under intergenerational pressure; a non-violent approach to seeking justice. [about]
    4. Right to Education, The: The Case of the Bahá'ís in Iran, by Tahirih Tahririha-Danesh, in Bahá'í-Inspired Perspectives on Human Rights (2001). On the ongoing harassment of Bahá’í students and educators resulting from the state-sponsored religious intolerance of the post-revolution government in Iran. [about]
    5. Searching for Bahá'í Identity, by Alexandra Leavy, in Journal of Cultural Studies of the Middle East and North Africa (2009). How do religious minorities adapt to the new nationalist identity of Iran post-1979? [about]
     
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