Iran’s Campaign to Deny Higher Education to its Largest Religious Minority

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday November 14, 2007 15:53 by Arise

Article 26 of the Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education yet since 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has systematically sought to deprive its largest religious minority, the Bahá'í Faith, of the right to a full education. The situation in Iran represents perhaps the only case where the right to education is being intentionally denied to an entire group of people. This denial of education is based entirely on religious discrimination.

The Bahá'í Faith is the youngest of the world's independent religions. Its founder, Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), is regarded by Bahá'ís as the most recent in the line of Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.
The Bahá'í faith stresses the primary importance of education in fostering humanities material, social and spiritual advancement. There are currently between 5 and 6 million Bahá'í’s in the World and about 1000 in Ireland.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has for more then 25 years blocked the 300,000-
member Bahá'í community from higher education, refusing them entry to university and college. The government has also sought to close down Bahá'í efforts to establish their own institutions of higher learning, in an attempt to completely block the progress and development of the community. The official decree barring students from admission to public university was issued in 1981, soon after the Islamic revolution. That year universities published new prospectuses requiring that applicants belong to one of the four religions recognised in the constitution, namely the Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Zoroastrian religions. The government has stated in the past that if Bahá'ís simply declare themselves as Muslims on their application form, they would be allowed to enrol in college. But for Bahá'ís, who as a matter of religious principal refuse to lie or dissimulate about their belief, even pretending to be a Muslim for the sake of going to university was unthinkable. The government eventually (seemingly to pacify international human rights monitors) agreed to remove the part in the application form that asks you to state your religion and the Bahá'ís sat the entrance exam in 2004 but when the results came back in August 2004 the Bahá'ís had been falsely recorded as Muslims. Bahá'ís, however, refused to go along and, accordingly were denied enrolment to college once again. All the Bahá'ís, some 800, who took the exam were excluded from university in 2004-2005 via this ploy, and again the same thing happened for this academic year 2005-2006. The persecution of the Bahá'ís in Iran is not related to any underlying issue of ethnicity or political agenda. The overwhelming majority of Iranian Bahá'ís come from the same diverse ethnic stocks as the rest of the population, and they represent a cross section of Iran’s social classes. Only their religious beliefs distinguish them from their fellow countrymen – beliefs that the Bahá'í teachings forbid them from imposing on others. Because of the control exercised by the Islamic clergy over the communications media, the nature of Bahá'í beliefs remains virtually unknown to a public that has been systematically taught to hate and fear them. The result has been widespread, unreasoning prejudice.

Throughout the past century, the Bahá'ís of Iran have been persecuted. With the triumph of the Islamic revolution in 1979, this persecution has been systematized. More than 200 Bahá'ís have been executed or killed, hundreds more have been imprisoned, and tens of thousands have been deprived of jobs, pensions, businesses, and educational opportunities. The Government has banned all national and local Bahá’í administrative institutions, and Bahá'í holy places, cemeteries and community properties have been confiscated, vandalized, or destroyed.

Over the last 25 years, the only source of protection for the Iranian Bahá'í community has been international concern, as expressed through the United Nation, by governments, and in the news media. I hope by writing this article the colleges academic leaders and students representatives will protest the blatantly unjust oppression that continues to confront the young people of Iran’s Bahá'í community.