Read Dr. Christopher Buck's ground-breaking encyclopedia article, "Baha'i Faith and Social Action", and other materials recently posted on Iran Press Watch at: http://iranpresswatch.org/.

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Subject: Iran Press Watch: The Baha'i Community

Iran Press Watch: The Baha'i Community

Muslim Students Protest Baha'i Expelled from Iranian University

Posted: 05 Dec 2008 07:32 PM CST

(From MidEastYouth.org) One of the weapons the Iranian government has employed to suppress its Baha'i population is denying its youth their right to an education, in what can only be described as an intellectual cleansing.

Iran's Ministry of "Justice" stipulates that Baha'is can enrol in schools (preferably ones with a strong religious ideology), provided that they do not disclose their religious affiliation. It therefore isn't surprising that reports have emerged stating that Baha'i children often face conversion attempts.

But following the Revolution, the doors of higher educational institutions were slammed shut before Baha'is. Even the Baha'i Institution of Higher Education, an underground community-run initiative, was raided and closed down by authorities in 1998.

The Iranian government claims that it has changed its policies and now admits Baha'is into universities, but a memo sent out by Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology instructed all institutions to expel any student discovered to be a Baha'i.

Several Muslim students and faculty members spoke of feeling distraught at the unjust expulsion of their Baha'i brothers and sisters, but one group decided to take action and protest.

Mr. Ameed Saadat, an Iranian Baha'i, participated in Iran's 2008 national university entrance examination and was accepted to study hotel management at Goldasht College in Kelardasht, Mazandaran, which is affiliated with the University of Applied Science and Technology in Tehran. He was able to begin studies, notwithstanding he had identified himself as a Baha'i on the college registration forms, which request ed the student's religion. In the following weeks, he was told several times to change the information regarding his religion, which he declined to do. The day before his first-term final examinations were to begin, Mr. Saadat was informed by the director of the college that he was being expelled and would therefore not be permitted to sit for the examinations.

When Mr. Saadat's fellow students asked why he had not been assigned a seat for the tests, they were told by a college official that Mr. Saadat had been dismissed on account of morality issues. However, when Mr. Saadat asked the official what precisely was his "moral problem," the official responded by raising the issue of his religion and asked whether Mr. Saadat wanted the other students to be informed that his expulsion was to be on account of his adherence to the Baha'i Faith.

Mr. Saadat agreed, and when the announcement was made to his class of some 50 students, most of them objected, asking, "What does religion have to do with education?" The following day, 26 students refused to take the examination in protest against Mr. Saadat's expulsion. Three of these students were then summoned by the Ministry of Information and questioned as to who had instigated the strike. They reported that they had informed the Information Ministry agents that the decision to protest had been of their own personal choices and that Mr. Saadat had in fact asked them not to take this action.

In his final contact with the college, Mr. Saadat was told by officials, "Your education has been terminated, and you can come and get your records. That is, your education has been nullified."

"Iranian society rightfully places a high value on education, and the government's debarring of Baha'is from universities clearly aims not only to diminish the future prospects of these young people but also to demoralize them and their families" said Ms. Kit Bigelow, Director of External Affairs for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the U.S. "It is therefore extremely encouraging to the Baha'is when, in incidents such as the one outlined above, their compatriots–often at considerable risk to themselves–take a firm stand against the deplorable behavior of the authorities."

It's through the self-less courage and pursuit of justice that positive change is brought about. We hope that more Iranian citizens begin to voice their objection to the persecution Iranian authorities subject the Baha'i minority to.

Baha'i Faith and Social Action

Posted: 05 Dec 2008 10:29 AM CST

An Encyclopedia article by Dr. Christopher Buck

Christopher Buck's "Baha'i Faith and Social Action" is an "invited" article, published in the Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice, edited by Gary L. Anderson and Kathryn G. Herr, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2007. Vol. 1, 208–213. The article has a section on "Baha'is in Iran" (p. 210).

It is unusual for a reference work to feature an article on the "Baha'i Faith." Encyclopedias are expensive projects, and each encyclopedia entry must meet strict limits as far as the allotted "word count" is concerned. Thus, it is even more extraordinary that this much space would be allowed on the topic of the "Baha'is in Iran."

It is said that "philosophy is the handmaid of theology." The article is subtly structured on the work of a Baha'i philosopher, Alain Locke (1885-1954)—that is, on Locke's philosophy of democracy, in nine dimensions. The reader will have to carefully read the article to discern this subliminal structure. Also, recent statements on democracy, from the Baha'i International Community to the Universal House of Justice, are referenced.

This small article effectively "translates" certain Baha'i teachings into an expanded concept of democracy, ranging from "local democracy" to "world democracy." In a Baha'i essay published for the first time in World Order magazine in 2005, Alain Locke wrote: "Baha'i Principles and the leavening of our national life with their power, is to be regarded as the salvation of democracy. In this way only can the fine professions of American ideals be realized." Contrast this to the quite undemocratic treatment that the Baha'is in Iran are experiencing, for the true test of any democracy, as Alain Locke says, is its equitable treatment of minorities.

"Baha'i Faith and Social Action" – which surveys Baha'i-sponsored social and economic development projects worldwide – concludes: "These Baha'i-sponsored initiatives represent, but do not exhaust, efforts by the worldwide Baha'i community and its democratically elected institutions to promote social justice through social action."

Bahai_Faith_and_Social_Action

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