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Bahá’ís: “Second-Class Citizens” in Iran

by editor · April 12, 2014
Niki Mahjoub
[Originally published by BBC Persian on Tuesday, 8 April 2014 at 16:59 GMT]

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One day in the middle of class, our religion teacher asked, “Children, have you ever heard anything about the Baha’is? If you have a Baha’i friend, you shouldn’t communicate with them or even drink from the same glass of water. These people are unclean.”


Mahtab says, “I first heard the word “Baha’i” in the third grade during religion class. The family who lived next door to us had a Baha’i daughter, and we were close friends. One day when we were playing together, I told her what the religion teacher had said, and she started to sob. She said, “Well, I am a Baha’i.” I was just a kid at the time, so I couldn’t find any way to comfort her. When I came back home from school the following day, the family had left.”
Following the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government has not officially recognized the Baha’i religion. According to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the only recognized religions apart from Islam are Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity.


When the Islamic Republic came to power, confrontations with Baha’is entered a new level of intensity. Throughout the 1980s, many Baha’is were arrested and imprisoned, their property was confiscated, and a number of them were executed.


Soraya is a member of the Iranian Baha’i community who came to Great Britain 20 years ago. Regarding her experiences as a Baha’i in Iran, she told BBC Persian: “Prior to the revolution, my family and I never faced any serious obstacles. The biggest problems began after the revolution. My father, a retired army officer, was cut off from his pension. My brothers and sisters were fired from their jobs. I was a student in secondary school at the time. When I had two years of schooling left, our school hired a new principal, who always used to say, ‘I have set aside the files belonging to you Baha’is from those of the other students, since you are like parasites, and I will see to it that you are expelled as soon as possible.’ From that time on, I would wait to be expelled every day I went to school.”


Soraya added, “After the Cultural Revolution, a section was added to the college entrance exam form where students had to indicate their religious affiliation. They had four religions to choose from: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. Under these choices, I would write ‘Baha’i.’ Year after year I filled out these forms, but I was never allowed to take the entrance exam. Even when I was able to take correspondence courses with universities outside of the country through the Baha’i community, the envelopes containing our homework would be intercepted and destroyed. This interference made sending our homework to those universities extremely difficult for us.”


Soraya also noted that two of her brothers were arrested and initially sentenced to death in the 1980s, and that through the efforts and campaigns of human rights activists, the death sentences given to a number of Baha’is—including her two brothers—were overturned.


Shahab, another Baha’i citizen who never had the opportunity to get a university education because he is a Baha’i, said, “We Baha’is are second-class citizens. We are not allowed to be employed in the public sector or to get an education, and we must always be careful to avoid giving others an excuse to harass us. My only wish was to obtain a university education, but I was deprived of that opportunity. I wanted to study Persian and to become successful in my country, but I was forced to leave it.”


Recently, Mohammad Javad Larijani—the head of the human rights council in the Iranian judiciary—denied the idea that Baha’is in Iran “face any kind of discrimination or human rights violations simply for being Baha’is”, and declared that no one is tried before a judge or barred from higher education just for being Baha’i.
Addressing reports of the violation of Iranian religious minorities’ human rights, Mr. Larijani said, “Those human rights reports which claim that the rights of Iranian minorities are not protected are blatant lies. Such statements are racist, sectarian, and contrary to the standards of human rights.”
Emphasizing that the Baha’i faith is not an “officially recognized religion,” Mr. Larijani added, “The followers of this faith have never been harassed by officials solely because they are Baha’is, since these officials believe that every Iranian citizen has been accorded rights that are stipulated in our constitution, and that these citizens cannot therefore be deprived of those rights.”


These remarks come at a time when the worldwide Baha’i community and activists for the rights of religious minorities in Iran note that after the revolution, Baha’is were fired from their occupations in the public sector and were deprived of a university education.


For the complete article read:

Bahá’ís: ?Second-Class Citizens? in Iran - Iran Press Watch

Translation by Iran Press Watch


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