No Baha’i Student Has Ever Returned to University

Source: www.radiozamaneh.com/174825

Translation by Iran Press Watch

10 September, 2014

In an open letter to Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s President, 360 Baha’is who have been barred from university have declareed: “despite the current government’s promises, barring Baha’is from university continues as before.”

Baha’is barred from university have requested that Hassan Rouhani, as Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, change the law of this council.

In this letter it has been mentioned that Hassan Rouhani, during his presidential campaign last year, talked about citizen’s human rights, and especially emphasized the return of these suspended and barred students to the university.  However according to the signatories of this letter, during this one year, not only were no Baha’i students called back to schools, but the trend of incomplete application records of those who have taken the nationwide university entrance examination continued this year, as it was during the administration prior to the current government.

Shadan Shirazi, and Rouhieh Safaju, two Baha’i girls who passed this year’s nationwide entrance examination, are only two examples of Baha’is who were barred from university, and this has been announced in social media.

In the letter to Hassan Rouhani, they state: “the lack of any announcements regarding the 2014 preliminary and final nationwide examination results of many Baha’is over the last month, is a sign of a lack of interest on your part regarding Baha’i youths’ entrance to universities.

In their letter, the Baha’is who have been barred from education wrote: “In most cases, many high ranking officials of the Ministry of Science and the Institute of Assessment announced that the main reason for the administration of Hassan Rouhani as well as prior government administrations continuing to bar Baha’is from education to be certain “secret resolutions of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution”*.

They told Hassan Rouhani, as Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, that he has the ability to change these resolutions.

The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, according to its 25 February 1991 resolution, bars Baha’is from education as well as employment in government jobs.

According to the third paragraph of the memorandum to the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, should the identity of a Baha’i be revealed after registration at the university or while in school, this person will be barred from continuing in higher education.

The signatories of the letter expressed their surprise at the role of prior officials of the Ministry of Science and the Institute of Assessment who are also currently in the  administration of the current government, and who have had a prominent role in barring Baha’i students from universities, and see their presence as contrary to the President’s claims about ending discrimination in the educational sector of the country.

These Baha’is who have been barred from higher education demand reforms in the educational structure of the country by having the Ministry declare clearly, unequivocally, and immediately the preliminary and final national 2014 test results of all Baha’is; that all barred students, who have been prevented since the 1979 Islamic revolution from attending university, be they those who have been marked for various reasons, or Baha’is, or have been suspended or are subjected to gender discrimination, etc., be allowed to return to university. They also demand the cancellation as well as the correction of all resolutions which directly or indirectly have brought about any kind of discrimination in the process of entering universities.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has not only barred Baha’is from their right to education, but is not even allowing them to independently access schooling by creating their own educational institutions.

Many Baha’i citizens who have been associated with the Baha’i Institution for Higher Education (BIHE) have been arrested, and this institution has been declared illegal.  BIHE was established in the year 1985 with the assistance of Baha’i professors who themselves were discharged  their previous employment teaching at public universities, for the Baha’i youth who had been denied an education in Iranian universities.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognize Baha’is as a religious minority in Iran, and after the Islamic Revolution they have always been subjected to political, social, economic and various other forms of discrimination. It is estimated that at least 200 Baha’is have been executed in Iran since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution.
The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the Baha’i religion, which came to existence in the 19^th century and has more than seven million followers worldwide, to be a “deviant sect”, and for this reason denies  the followers of this faith their citizenship rights.

* The memorandum detailing the secret blueprint for destroying the Baha’i Faith in Iran can be found here: http://news.bahai.org/human-rights/iran/education/feature-articles/secret-blueprint