Baha'i news: Baha'i educational programme targeted in raids

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Baha'i educational programme targeted in raids


GENEVA, 22 May 2011 (BWNS) – A coordinated series of raids have been carried 
out on the homes of several Iranian Baha'is, active in a community initiative 
to provide a higher education programme for young members who are barred from 
university. 

Initial reports indicate that raids took place yesterday on houses in Tehran, 
Karaj, Isfahan, and Shiraz. As many as 30 people may already have been arrested.

"All of the targets were homes of individuals closely involved with the 
operations of the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education," said Diane Ala'i, 
representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations in 
Geneva.  

The Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was established in 1987 as a 
community initiative to meet the educational needs of young Baha'is who have 
been systematically denied access to higher education by the Iranian 
government. The BIHE has been described by the New York Times as "an elaborate 
act of communal self-preservation." 

"The Institute has been a remarkably creative – and entirely non-violent – 
response to the Iranian government's ongoing effort to stifle the normal human 
development of the Baha'i community," said Ms. Ala'i.

"The Iranian authorities – not content with debarring Baha'is from university 
solely on account of their religious beliefs – are now cruelly seeking to shut 
down the community's efforts to provide its youth with higher education through 
alternative means.

"The government's actions are utterly unjustifiable," said Ms. Ala'i. 

This is not the first time that the BIHE has come under attack from Iranian 
authorities. One of the biggest blows was a series of sweeping raids carried 
out in 1998 during which some 36 members of the BIHE's faculty and staff were 
arrested, and much of its equipment and records – located in more than 500 
homes – was taken. Other actions against the operations of BIHE were carried 
out in 2001 and 2002. 

These attacks – and Iran's general policy prohibiting young Baha'is from 
entering higher education – have been met with strong condemnation by 
governments, academics, UN agencies, civil society organizations and others. 

Among the numerous actions taken, university professors and chaplains around 
the world have sent letters of protest to the UN Secretary-General and the 
leaders of Iran; in 2006, the president of Princeton university in the United 
States raised the matter with the Iranian representative to the UN; Spain's 
House of Deputies has passed a strongly-worded resolution on the situation; 
Wolfson College, Oxford, also voted through a resolution in November 2007, as 
did the University of Winnipeg in Canada. 

"These latest raids appear to be another concerted attempt to attack the BIHE, 
which the authorities have long sought to do," said Diane Ala'i.

"We are calling upon governments and educational organizations throughout the 
world to register with the government of Iran their strong disapproval of its 
systematic, ongoing efforts to deny to young Baha'is their fundamental human 
right to access higher education." 





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