My Sister Is Jailed Because She Wants to Study

When she protested that this was against the constitution of the Islamic Republic — which states that all citizens have a right to education regardless of ethnicity, language and religion — she was told to write a letter to be sent to the Ministry of Science.

She wrote the letter, but the National Testing Organization never registered it. The secretariat of the organization told her that letters related to “security” matters are not registered; this, too, was an illegal act. Rouhie went to the Ministry of Science to pursue her letter, and filed a complaint against the National Testing Organization for refusing to register it. At the ministry they did not give her an answer, and told her that the matter was still under investigation. In the meantime, Rouhie lost her chance to select her field of study.

Rouhie then filed a complaint with the Court of Administrative Justice against the National Testing Organization and the Ministry of Science. She also wrote letters to the Office of the President and the parliament’s Article 90 Committee, which is responsible for investigating constitutional matters. She personally went to the Office of the President, to a member of parliament from Tehran, and to the Ministry of Science to voice her grievance. No one answered her. In the end she wrote about her experience and her actions on Facebook.

In 2015 she took the exams again, but as before, she received no result.

On March 8, 2016 Rouhie was arrested for her actions, and sent to Evin Prison.