170. Assault against the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education

170

Assault against the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education

25 May 2011

To selected National Spiritual Assemblies

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

170.1 The Universal House of Justice has directed us to relay to you for your immediate attention the following information regarding a recent assault against the Bahá’í community by the Iranian authorities….

170.2 Sometime on 21 May 2011, agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, acting simultaneously in several cities across the country, including Gohardasht, Isfahan, Karaj, Sari, Shiraz, Tehran, and Zahedan, raided the homes of individuals who are closely involved in assisting with the operations of the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education. Initial reports indicate that at least thirty households were subjected to extensive searches and that the following sixteen Bahá’ís were arrested either immediately or the next day:

• Gohardasht: Afrúz Farmánburdárí [Afrouz Farmanbordari]
• Isfahan: Fu’ád Muqaddam [Foad Moghaddam]
• Karaj: Vaḥíd Maḥmúdí [Vahid Mahmoudi], Vaḥíd Mukhtárí [Vahid Mokhtari], Farhád Ṣidqí [Farhad Sedghi], Rámín Zíbá’í [Ramin Zibaie]
• Sari: Amír-Húshang Amírtabár [Amir-Houshang Amirtabar], Navíd Asadí [Navid Asadi], Ṣadaf Thábitíyán [Sadaf Sabetian]
• Shiraz: Amánu’lláh Mustaqím [Amanollah Mostaghim]
• Tehran: Maḥmúd Bádavám [Mahmoud Badavam], Suhayl Qanbarí [Soheil Ghanbari], Núshín Khádim [Noushin Khadem], Kámrán Murtiḍá’í [Kamran Mortezaie], Sháhín Nigárí [Shahin Negari]
• City of residence unknown: Daníál Ují [Danial Oji]

170.3 Mr. Vaḥíd Mukhtárí of Karaj is understood to have already been released. Eight other Bahá’ís were interrogated by Ministry of Intelligence officers and released immediately after. As further information becomes available, it will be conveyed to you.

170.4 The actions of the authorities towards the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education underline the intent of the Iranian government to effect, by all means at its disposal, its policy to eliminate the Bahá’í community as a viable entity in the land of its birth. You will recall that in 1991 a confidential memorandum on “The Bahá’í Question”, issued by the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and approved by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, stated clearly the position of the Islamic Republic towards the Bahá’í community. The memorandum specifies that Iran’s Bahá’ís should be treated in such a way “that their progress and development are blocked”. Included under the heading of educational and cultural status is the provision that Bahá’ís “must 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.”

170.5 As you are well aware, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that this policy has been enforced not only since the circulation of the 1991 memorandum but indeed since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Bahá’í students were expelled from university and Bahá’í university professors and lecturers were summarily dismissed from their positions. To mitigate the effects of this ban, in the late 1980s the Bahá’í community then made informal arrangements, using the volunteer services of the Bahá’í professors who had been fired from their jobs, to teach Bahá’í students at home. Since then, the Iranian government has made repeated attempts to bring to a halt this quiet, peaceful, and vital initiative. In 1998, more than thirty-six individuals who were assisting with this initiative were arrested in a series of raids conducted over a five-day period on more than 500 Bahá’í homes and much of the records and equipment used for the classes were confiscated. In subsequent years there have been periodic onslaughts of varying intensity against this endeavour, most notably in 2001 and 2003.

170.6 You will recall that in 2006, a strong international outcry was raised over the flagrantly discriminatory practice that prevented Bahá’ís from sitting for the national university entrance examination because the forms announcing the results identified them as Muslims, which they could not in good conscience accept, as this constituted a recantation of their faith. When confronted about this, Iranian government officials stated, including in official responses, that the forms did not identify the student’s religion but rather the religious studies subject on which he or she had been examined. The House of Justice decided to accept that assurance, and Bahá’í students who passed the entrance examinations began to register for university courses. However, the experience of the years that ensued has amply demonstrated that the policy to exclude Bahá’ís from Iranian institutions of higher learning, as articulated in the 1991 secret memorandum, remains fully operational. Despite the government’s protestations that no one is prevented from attending university on account of his or her religion, qualified young Bahá’ís are prevented from taking their examinations or entering universities. Those who are matriculated continue to be either rejected at the enrolment phase or expelled from the universities—in some cases just prior to the completion of their courses of study—solely because they are Bahá’ís. It is evident that those few Bahá’ís who are being permitted to pursue their university studies for a time are there simply because this allows the authorities to deny that they prohibit Bahá’ís from access to higher education.

170.7 There can be no doubt that the attacks on the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education are being carried out under a centrally orchestrated campaign aimed at demoralizing Bahá’í youth and eroding the formal educational level of the community so as to hasten its impoverishment. Not content with excluding the believers from the nation’s universities, the government is callously revitalizing its efforts to thwart the informal educational arrangements that the Bahá’í community has undertaken to enable its youth to expand their knowledge beyond the high school level….

With** **loving Bahá’í greetings,

Department of the Secretariat