2019 college entrance exam: At least 17 Baha'is have been deprived of education
Iranian human rights activists say that at least 19 people have been disqualified from this year's university entrance exam because they are Baha'is, apparently based on a resolution of the Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution that has no legal basis.
HRANA News Agency, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists in Iran, which previously published a list of eight Baha'i citizens deprived of university education, has published a new list of deprived participants in the 2019 college entrance exam, according to which this number has increased to 19 people.
In a report published yesterday, Saturday, November 10, HRANA said that the website of the organization that assessed the reasons for the exclusion of these individuals listed various flaws, including "lack of file" and "investigations into the file", but investigations by human rights activists revealed that the reason for the exclusion was that these citizens were Baha'is.
This is a well-known practice in the Islamic Republic, and in previous years, a number of Baha'i participants in the entrance exam and candidates for continuing their studies at universities have been denied admission under similar pretexts.
On Saturday, the HRANA news agency published in a Twitter message the names of those whose exclusion has been confirmed so far due to their Baha'i identity.
Resolution of the Supreme Revolutionary Council and claims of officials
Many senior officials of the Islamic Republic, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, Foreign Minister of Hassan Rouhani's government, have repeatedly denied in interviews with foreign media that Baha'is are denied university education due to their religious beliefs.
Lawyer Masoud Nili rejects this claim and says that the deprivation of Baha'is from education is carried out in accordance with a resolution of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, which has no legal basis.
Apparently, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution issued a secret resolution in March 2017 that Baha'is should be prevented from entering universities and that if university students are found to be Baha'is, they should also be expelled.
Based on reports published over the past four decades and statements by Baha'i citizens on social media, the deprivation of Baha'is from education is not limited to university education and has occurred frequently at various levels of education.
Three generations of Baha'is deprived of education
Journalist and political activist Mehdi Mahmoudian, in a Twitter message, referred to this fact and denounced the agents of the Islamic Republic as "claiming to be the world's largest democracy."
According to Article 12 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, “the official religion of Iran is Islam and the Jafari Twelver sect,” and according to Article 13, “Zoroastrian, Kalemie, and Christian Iranians are recognized as the only religious minorities.”
In the Islamic Republic, followers of other Islamic sects do not enjoy full rights and face various restrictions. The Baha'i faith is a new religion, founded in 1890. One of the reasons for the Islamic Republic and Islamists' hostility to this religion is the Muslim belief that the Prophet Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets.
With the establishment of the Islamic Republic and the beginning of the persecution, prosecution, and deprivation of social rights of Baha'is, a large number of them emigrated outside Iran. However, the number of Baha'is denied entry to universities in some previous years reached several hundred.
Source: DW
