BIHE - Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education

گزارش‌ها حاکی است که جایزه‌ سال ۲۰۲۲ انجمن «لیبرپرس» اسپانیا به مؤسسه آموزش عالی بهائیان ایران رسید.

انجمن لیبرپرس گفته است، مؤسسه آموزش عالی بهایی به خاطر «تلاش ستودنیِ این نهاد در فراهم آوردنِ آموزش عالی برای هزاران جوانِ بهاییِ محروم از تحصیل در سرزمین مادری خود» شایسته‌ دریافت جایزه‌ سال ۲۰۲۲ این نهاد است.

جایزه سال ۲۰۲۲ لیبرپرس به طور مشترک به مؤسسه آموزش عالی بهایی و کیانوش رمضانی، کاریکاتوریستِ مدافع حقوق بشر٬ اهدا شده است.

این جایزه از سال ۱۹۹۹ هر سال به مؤسسات، نهادها و افرادی که در راه تعمیقِ فرهنگِ همبستگی، مسئولیت مشترک و ارزش‌های انسانی تلاش کرده‌اند اهدا می‌شود.

مؤسسه آموزش عالی بهایی٬ یک مؤسسه آموزشی غیررسمی در ایران است که سال ۶۶ توسط بهائیان و به منظور فراهم کردن امکانات برای تحصیل فرزندانشان تأسیس شد.

در سال‌های اخیر بهائیان زیادی به جرم تدریس و تحصیل در این دانشگاه بازداشت و روانه زندان شده‌اند و به همین دلیل، در این دانشگاه، کلاس رسمی برگزار نمی‌شود.

دانشجویان این دانشگاه به شکل خودآموز درس می‌خوانند و فقط کلاس‌های رفع اشکال در خانه‌ داوطلبان برگزار می‌شود.

جمهوری اسلامی بهائیت را به عنوان یک «دین الهی» به رسمیت نمی‌شناسد و پیروان آن علاوه بر محرومیت از حقوقی چون تحصیل در دانشگاه و داشتن شغل‌‌های دولتی، همواره در معرض بازداشت و تعقیب قضایی به اتهامات گوناگون قرار دارند.

محرومیت تحصیلی بهاییان در سال‌های اخیر به برخی مقاطع دیگر هم گسترش یافته است.

شهریور امسال پس از اینکه اعلام شد یک دبیرستان در سمنان، از ثبت‌نام دانش‌آموزی به دلیل «بهایی بودن» او خودداری کرده، وزیر آموزش و پرورش ایران گفت: «اگر دانش‌آموزان اظهار کنند که پیرو ادیان دیگری به‌جز ادیان رسمی کشور هستند و این اقدام آنها به‌ نوعی تبلیغ محسوب شود، تحصیل آنها در مدارس ممنوع است.»

اینگونه اظهارنظرها در حالی مطرح می‌شود که بر اساس ماده ۳۰ قانون اساسی جمهوری اسلامی ایران، «دولت موظف است وسایل آموزش و پروش رایگان را برای همه ملت تا پایان دوره متوسطه فراهم آورد».

جایزه سال ۲۰۲۲ یک انجمن اسپانیایی به مؤسسه آموزش عالی بهائیان ایران رسید گزارش‌ها حاکی است که جایزه‌ سال ۲۰۲۲ انجمن «لیبرپرس» اسپانیا به مؤسسه آموزش عالی بهائیان ایران رسید.

Lessons on Distance Learning From an Underground University People who practice the Bahai faith in Iran are denied many civil liberties, like access to higher education. They get around the ban with secret distance learning and the help of people like an East Bay woman. Garvin Thomas reports.

MOJDEH ROHANI

When I became the first graduate of BIHE whose degree was accepted by 5 major universities in the US, I felt a special sense of pride! Of course I was happy that years of my hard work had paid off, but more importantly, I was elated that a BIHE degree was recognized by those prestigious universities. It was important for me to give hope to my fellow students in Iran that our efforts and those of our selfless professors and administrators were not in vain.
With a BA in Psychology from BIHE, I continued my graduate studies in social work. Today, I am the executive director at Community Legal Services and Counseling Center and adjunct faculty at Boston University School of Social work.

The Baha'i Institute Of Higher Education: A Creative And Peaceful Response To Religious Persecution In Iran

Baha'i International Community written statement to the 55th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights under Agenda item 10 of the provisional agenda: The Right to Education. Circulated as UN Document # E/CN.4/1999/NGO/13.

GENEVA—1 April 1999
Since 1980, as part of a government-directed attempt to destroy the intellectual and cultural life of the 300,000-member Baha'i­ community, young people who declare their Baha'i­ identity have been systematically excluded from colleges and universities in Iran.

Deeply concerned at seeing an entire generation of its best and brightest languish without the opportunity for higher learning, the Baha'i­ community of Iran launched a creative and wholly non-violent response: the establishment of its own independent, full-fledged, yet completely decentralized, university system. The New York Times, in an article about the university published on 29 October 1998, called this effort "an elaborate act of communal self-preservation."

Founded in 1987, the Baha'i­ Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) had, until September 1998, an enrollment of more than 900 students, a faculty of more than 150 first-rate academics and instructors, and an "infrastructure" composed of various classrooms, laboratories and libraries scattered throughout Iran in private homes and buildings.

As has been widely reported in the international news media, agents of the Iranian Government staged a series of sweeping raids in late September and early October, arresting at least 36 members of the BIHE's faculty and staff and confiscating equipment and records located in over 500 homes.

As the New York Times noted, "[t]he materials confiscated were neither political nor religious, and the people arrested were not fighters or organizers. They were lecturers in subjects like accounting and dentistry; the materials seized were textbooks and laboratory equipment."

Those who were arrested, many of whom have now been released, were asked to sign a document declaring that BIHE had ceased to exist as of 29 September and that they would no longer cooperate with it. The detainees refused to sign any such declaration.

To informed observers, the recent arrests and confiscations are clearly part of a long-standing and centrally orchestrated campaign by Iranian authorities to deal with Iran's Baha'i­ community "in such a way that their progress and development are blocked." This is the stated intent of the policy set forth in a secret 1991 Government memorandum that instructed authorities in how to deal with "the Baha'i­ question." The actions against the BIHE, likewise, reflect a new and dangerous period for Iran's Baha'i­ community. This period was ushered in by the summary ex*****on of Mr. Ruhu'llah Rawhani, a 52-year-old medical supplies salesman who was hanged in Mashhad on 21 July 1998 solely for religious reasons, and the subsequent confirmation of death sentences against two other Baha'i­s in Mashhad in September.

The secret Government memorandum, drawn up by the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council in February 1991, was obtained and made public in 1993 by Mr. Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the United Nations' Special Representative investigating the human rights situation in Iran. Signed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the memorandum established a subtle government policy aimed at essentially grinding the community into non-existence by forcing Baha'i­ children to have a strong Islamic education, pushing Baha'i­ adults to the economic periphery and forcing them from all positions of power or influence, and requiring Baha'i­ youth "be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Baha'i­s."

Not an "Underground" University
It would be incorrect to call the Baha'i­ Institute for Higher Education an "underground university," since its existence was well known to the authorities from its earliest years. In fact, in 1996 Iranian authorities conducted far-reaching raids against BIHE sites, confiscating records and equipment but not moving to shut down the operation. In keeping with Baha'i­ religious teachings on obedience to government, the Baha'i­s in Iran always answered forthrightly questions about the Institute and any other activities when asked. Nevertheless, inasmuch as the Baha'i­s of Iran have been blocked from operating their institutions freely and normally, they resorted to the concept of running an "open university" that was both highly decentralized and carefully circumspect in its operation.

Until the Government raids at the end of September 1998, the Institute offered Bachelor's degrees in ten subject areas: applied chemistry, biology, dental science, pharmacological science, civil engineering, computer science, psychology, law, literature and accounting. And within these subject areas, which were administered by five university "departments," the Institute was able to offer more than 200 distinct courses each term. In the beginning, courses were based on correspondence lessons developed by Indiana University, which was one of the first institutions in the West to recognize the Baha'i­ Institute for Higher Education. Later on, course offerings were developed internally.

The teaching was done principally via correspondence, or, for specialized scientific and technical courses and in other special cases, in small-group classes that were usually held in private homes.

"At the beginning, the students did not even know the names of their professors," said one BIHE professor, who, like most others interviewed, wanted to remain anonymous out of fear for his safety and that of his relatives in Iran. Even after three or four years, the students did not know the names of their professors. They had never seen them because it was very dangerous. If somebody knew a professor's name, he or she might tell a friend. So all courses were conducted by correspondence at the beginning of this plan.

Over time, however, the Institute was able to establish a few laboratories, operated in privately owned commercial buildings in and around Teheran. These laboratories included a computer science laboratory, a physics laboratory, a dental science laboratory, a pharmacological laboratory, an applied chemistry laboratory and a language study laboratory. The operations of these laboratories were kept prudently quiet, with students cautioned not to come and go in large groups that might give the authorities a reason to object.

An All-Volunteer, Unpaid Faculty
At its peak, the Institute had more than 150 faculty members. Approximately 25 or 30 were professors who were fired from Government-run universities after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Other faculty members included doctors, dentists, lawyers and engineers who gave of their time to teach students. The majority were educated in Iran, but a good number have degrees from universities in the West, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, the University of California at Berkeley and the Sorbonne. None of the Baha'i­ faculty members were paid for their time; all gave it freely as a form of community service.

"These youth are very precious people," said a faculty member, explaining why they were willing to take such risks, without monetary remuneration, to establish the Institute. "We all care about them. They have been through tests and trials and they had no hope. They have been deprived of many things, so if there is any chance for us to get something better for them, we did it."

Each of the five departments drew not only on these volunteer professors for their academic expertise but also on a small and anonymous group of Baha'i­ academics in North America, Europe and Australia. These outside academicians sent in the latest textbooks and research papers, occasionally made visits to Iran as guest lecturers, and otherwise providedinstructional and technical support.

"The Baha'i­ youth are all raised to want to study and become professionals," said one of the academics involved in supporting the Institute. "So to sit around and do nothing is a very serious psychological pressure. And before the Open University really got going, the youth were in a hopeless position." The academic, who is Iranian born and still has family in Iran, also asked that his name not be used.

High Academic Standards
Entrance examinations for the BIHE were required, and the Institute established high standards. Of the roughly 1500 students who applied for admission in its first year of operation, 250 were accepted for the first semester of study. By 1996, a total of 600 students had enrolled in the Baha'i­ Institute of Higher Education and were pursuing their studies, and, by 1998, approximately 900 students were enrolled.

One former student, who is now living outside of Iran, likened the attitude of many of the students to Gandhi's attitude of non-violent resistance. Denied the right to an education by the authorities, students were determined to study to show the government that they could study.

Among the indications of the Institute's surprisingly high academic standards and instructional level was the success that a few Institute graduates had in gaining admission to graduate schools outside Iran, including major universities in the United States and Canada. It should be noted, however, that some Institute graduates and students outside Iran have had a difficult time getting their credits recognized. -Such challenges, which are a fact of life for Institute graduates, stem directly from the Iranian Government's policy of blocking their access to education and its refusal to recognize the Institute officially.

"In Iran, you have to apply for an examination to go to college," said one former BIHE student, who also asked to remain anonymous. "If you are successful at your exam, you can go to university." The student described the examination form as having a place which asks, `What is your religion?' The possible answers listed are "Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism." When the Baha'i­ students either didn't write anything or wrote "Baha'i­" off to the side, they were not given an entrance card to go to the examination hall. So they couldn't even take the exam."

Complex Administration
In its day-to-day operation, the Institute functioned basically like a correspondence school, but with its own delivery service. In its early years, students and faculty sent homework assignments and lessons back and forth via the state-run postal system. But the packages often did not arrive and were assumed to have been intercepted as part of the Government's attempt to interfere with Baha'i­ education.

Since professors could not deliver lectures openly, they prepared their own written notes and compiled textbooks for distribution to the students. Again, as noted above, some of these texts were based on the latest Western research. One student in civil engineering, for example, was studying the construction of earthquake-proof earthen silos - and the Institute's overseas contacts were able to get for him some of the latest research on this topic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Our aim was to offer the best courses available in Iran," said a faculty member.

The entire operation relied heavily on the use of extensive photocopying, and one of the biggest blows in the recent raids was the confiscation of several large photocopying units.

The Institute system also featured a network of special depository libraries around the country. Numbering more than 45, these libraries existed in the private homes of Baha'i­s and enabled students in each district to obtain access to the necessary textbooks for the courses. Some of these libraries were seized in the recent raids.

Shut Down
Over time, as Institute officials began to feel increasing confidence about their operation, they started to organize many group classes along with independent study in private homes. The Institute also began to publish sophisticated course catalogues, listing not only course offerings but the qualifications of the faculty members. Through the international network of Baha'i­ communities worldwide, the Institute also began to establish the means by which its graduates might become fully recognized by other institutions of higher education outside Iran.

It is not clear to the Baha'i­ community of Iran why the raids and confiscations were launched in late September. And Iranian Government officials have not been forthcoming with explanations when asked about the actions. According to The New York Times, Iranian officials made no comment when asked about the raids and arrests.

Among other significant human rights conventions, Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966. Parties to this Covenant "recognize the right of everyone to education" and more specifically that "higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means."

The exclusion of Baha'i­s from access to higher education in Iran certainly constitutes a gross violation of the Covenant. These latest steps taken to shut down the Iranian Baha'i­ community's creative and peaceful response only increases public outrage regarding the Iranian government's attempt to strangulate the Baha'i­ community.

UN Document /CN.4/1999/NGO/13

BIC Document #: 99-0401

https://www.bic.org/statements/bahai-institute-higher-education-creative-and-peaceful-response-religious-persecution-iran

In case you wonder how Google quantum processor outperformed the Summit supercomputer, on this Friday at 1PM Singapore time (10PM Thursday California time) I will give a talk at the Center for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. It is open to public. Just need to register. Further questions: Dimitris Angelakis, Jenny Hogan

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Time for Anti-Baha’i Discrimination to End in Iran

What is a day in the life of an Iranian Baha'i like? Baha'is are a religious minority of about 300,000 people in Iran. They face harsh forms of legal and social discrimination and routine persecution. Hateful anti-Baha'i policies are fueled by a steady stream hateful rhetoric emanating from Iranian state-run media and government affiliated clerics.
This video is produced by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Impact Iran

Time for Anti-Baha’i Discrimination to End in Iran What is a day in the life of an Iranian Baha'i like? Baha'is are a religious minority of about 300,000 people in Iran. They face harsh forms of legal and soc...

Persecution of Iran’s Baha’is ramped up: threats to “uproot”, prison sentences and psychological pressures
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In the face of an escalating health pandemic, the Iranian authorities have ramped up their persecution of the Baha’is, targeting at least 71 individuals across the country in recent weeks. Reports of new threats to “uproot” the community in Shiraz, along with an unprecedented number of new prison sentences, reincarcerations and a media campaign of hatred, are raising concerns for the long-persecuted religious minority in the country.

In a court hearing held for a group of Baha’is in Shiraz, a court official threatened to “uproot” the Baha’is in the city. The court sentenced the Baha’is to one to 13 years in prison. In recent weeks, 40 Baha’is in Shiraz whose cases were pending for months have been summoned to court, representing an unprecedented number of court summons against Baha’is in a single city in recent years.

“Such an outrageous statement by an official is an obvious demonstration of the religious bigotry and prejudice that the Baha’is in Iran face. It is also clear evidence of the injustice against the Baha’is within the judicial system and the authorities’ true motivation,” said Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations in New York. “Not only does it show the absence of the rule of law and the severe discrimination with which the Baha’is are treated in Iran’s justice system, its purpose is to intimidate the Baha’is, placing heavy psychological pressures on those directly targeted, as well as their families and all Baha’is in Iran.”

In addition to Shiraz, Baha’is in Birjand, Ghaemshahr, Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah and Yazd, have been arrested, summoned to court, tried, sentenced to jail or imprisoned solely for their beliefs in recent weeks. The number totals at least 71 Baha’is.

After being arrested and released on high bails, these individuals have faced months, and sometimes years, of waiting between their arrest, trial, appeal court, and the beginning of a jail term, adding an additional psychological burden. Such cruel tactics have been employed repeatedly by the authorities in recent years, systematically exerting pressure on the entire Baha’i community.

Among the Baha’is arrested in Birjand is an elderly man whose age puts his health at great risk if he is imprisoned. Some individuals, who were taking care of family members when summoned to court, were forced to travel on public transportation during the widespread lockdowns. Another couple who have been sentenced to prison have a daughter who has cancer, leading to deep concern for her care should they be imprisoned.

“The recent incidents have placed great pressures on hundreds of families,” said Ms. Dugal. “Subjecting them to the constant threat of imprisonment under these circumstances and emotional anguish associated with it is yet another attempt to place greater strain on the community. And to do all this during a health crisis, at an alarmingly escalated rate without any justification whatsoever, is extremely cruel and outrageous.”

The Baha’is, Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, have been persecuted in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A secret memorandum approved by Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1991 calls for the “progress and development” of the Baha’i community to be blocked by barring them from university and disrupting their ability to earn livelihoods.

The recent pressures come as Iran’s state-affiliated media have also stepped up the public defamation of the Baha’is through an increasingly coordinated spread of disinformation. Television channels, newspapers, radio stations and social media have been saturated with articles and videos denigrating Baha’i beliefs, all while Baha’is are denied the right of reply. More than 3,000 articles of anti-Baha’i propaganda were recorded by the Baha’i International Community so far this year, the figures doubling from January to April.

“Threatening to ‘uproot a community’, trying its members en masse, reincarcerating them during a pandemic, and spreading hateful propaganda against them is a shocking and profoundly troubling development,” said Ms. Dugal. “How can Iran’s government honour its sacred duty to the wellbeing of its people if it aims to uproot a community of law-abiding citizens? The Baha’is targeted in these incidents, and indeed all Baha’is facing discrimination, are innocent and must be free of religious persecution.”

Background information:

Fifty-five Baha’is have been summoned to court in Shiraz, Birjand, Karaj and Kermanshah. Of this number, 26 have been tried and sentenced.
Eleven Baha’is have been summoned to prison in Shiraz, Ghaemshahr and Birjand.
Three Baha’is have been arrested in Yazd.
Two Baha’is arrested in Isfahan were released shortly after.
For more information, contact Diane Ala’i in Geneva at (office) +41 22 798 5400 or
(mobile) +41 78 60 40 100, or Bani Dugal in New York at (office) +1 (212) 803-2500 or
(mobile) +1 (914) 329-3020

Baha’i Blogcast with Rainn Wilson – Episode 44: A Coronavirus (COVID-19 🦠 ) Special with Dr. Robert Kim-Farley

Baha'i Blogcast with Rainn Wilson - Episode 44: A Coronavirus (COVID-19) Special with Dr. Robert Kim-Farley - Baha'i Blog Hello and welcome to the Baha’i Blogcast with me your host, Rainn Wilson. In this series of podcasts I interview members of the Baha’i Faith and friends from all over the world about their hearts, and minds, and souls, their spiritual journeys, what they’re interested in, and what makes them t...

Why Yale and Columbia are accepting students from a university that holds classes in a basement in Tehran:

By Neha Thirani Bagri

Marjan Davoudi was 19 years old when she was told that she was not human.

Davoudi, now 56, had been studying math at the National University in Tehran when the Islamic revolution began in 1979. All the universities in Iran were closed for about a year while the revolutionaries overhauled the educational system to reflect Islamic ideals. When they reopened, the students were given an application for readmission.

This time, they were asked to list their religion.

Davoudi identified herself as a member of the Baha’i faith, and was expelled. An administrator at the university, who knew Davoudi personally, offered to get her an appointment with the dean to appeal the expulsion.

“I told him that I’m Baha’i and that I was expelled from the university only because of this. I talked about human rights,” says Davoudi. “He said ‘you’re not human, how dare you talk about human rights?’ He said being a Baha’i is in fact a crime and that I should be happy that this was the least that was going to happen to me.”

There are no good numbers for how many Baha’i were living in Iran at the time of the Islamic Revolution; there are an estimated 300,000 Baha’i left today, making them still by far Iran’s largest religious minority. The Baha’i faith was founded in 1844 in the Iranian city of Shiraz, when a man called the Báb announced he was “bearer of a message destined to transform humanity’s spiritual life,” and that there would be a second messenger from God that would arrive to lay out the message in detail. In 1863, a man called Bahá’u’lláh was declared to be the messenger foretold by Báb and began to preach a message of unity across the world’s faiths. Muslims in the country saw the faith as heresy and an insult to the teaching of Islam; Bahá’u’lláh’s followers were attacked and he was forced into exile. Through most of the 20th century, Baha’is were periodically attacked in Iran but the monarchs ruling the country tolerated the faith for the most part. After the Islamic revolution, these attacks accelerated.

Even in 2017, Baha’i are viewed as heretics in Iran and discriminated against. But in the decade following the revolution, it was especially awful—perversely, what the dean of the National University in Tehran had told Davoudi turned out to be true. Expulsion was nothing compared to the torture and imprisonment of hundreds of Bahai’s were tortured and imprisoned, or to the tens of thousands who lost their jobs because of their religious beliefs. Bahai’s had their homes and belongings confiscated and were denied passports to leave the country. And over 200 Baha’is were killed. One was Davoudi’s father.

Through it all, though, Davoudi did not give up her drive to learn. Nor did dozens of other young Iranian Baha’is. At first they mostly took correspondence courses, and met, clandestinely, to share materials and information. Then, about seven years after the revolution, the international Baha’i community realized: if Baha’i students in Iran couldn’t go to Iranian universities, they would have to start their own. Eventually, it became the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE)—still informal, still illegal, but now with a global network of graduates, professors, and and international supporters.

Today, BIHE graduates have been admitted to over 80 different graduate programs in North America, Europe, Australia, and India. They’ve gone on to some of the best schools in the world, including Yale, Berkeley, Columbia University, University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins.

The founding of the informal university

In the years after the revolution, Davoudi and other young Baha’is tried to keep their studies going by enrolling in correspondence courses with foreign universities.

Davoudi remembers poring over her English dictionary, preparing for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam. When she passed, she enrolled in a correspondence program for general studies at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Studying by correspondence had its challenges. The government was monitoring the Baha’i community, and would often intercept and confiscate textbooks sent by mail. Those who were able to get textbooks would make copies of the relevant pages and share with other students. Davoudi remembers the thrill of seeing an original biology textbook—with color pictures, even! But soon, the Iranian government discovered that Baha’is had found a way to work around the mail problem, and began to raid homes, confiscating study materials and arresting those enabling the program.

“Even as a student you were in danger; it felt like a crime all the time,” says Davoudi. “You are sitting there just studying math or physics and you don’t know if you are going to be arrested for this or not.”

The Baha’i community was in an interesting position. Baha’i students were unable to enroll in university—and Baha’i professors were expelled from university and found themselves without jobs. In 1987, they decide to bring together that unused supply and unfilled demand, starting their own informal university: the BIHE.

BIHE began as a mix of in-person and correspondence courses, the latter of which moved online once internet became easily accessible in Iran. Students now interact with professors over videoconference and submit class assignments online. The classes that do take place in person happen in clandestine locations, like the living rooms and basements of other supportive Baha’is in Tehran. Students come to the capital from all over Iran, meet with their professors and peers for a few intense days of instruction, and then disperse to continue their studies.

The institute has gradually expanded its course offerings and now offers a wide range of programs in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. There are 18 undergraduate four-year degree programs and 15 graduate level programs. About 1,000 students now apply to the institute each year; BIHE accepts about 450.

Building a faculty of volunteers

In the beginning, the institute relied on faculty fired from teaching positions in Iranian universities. But three decades on, one of the institute’s biggest resources are its former students, who often return to the institute to volunteer as teaching assistants, faculty, or administrators, even while working elsewhere.

Saman Mobasher, 35, grew up in a Baha’i family in Tehran and was denied access to Iranian universities after he finished high school. BIHE was his only option and in his first few weeks enrolled as a student at the institute he was disappointed with the facilities available to him.

“It was kind of a blow for me at first because I was very passionate about my education,” says Mobasher. “When I saw that BIHE was a way for the Baha’i community in Iran to respond in a peaceful and productive way to all the restrictions and suppression that are placed on them, my studies took on a deeper significance. I was obtaining a higher education, but I was also part of a collective action of resilience in the face of oppression.”

At 26, he graduated from the psychology program at BIHE and began to work as a teaching assistant. In 2007, he went to England and completed a masters in social and organizational psychology at Exeter University. Upon his return to Iran in 2009 he began to teach psychology at BIHE, and later became head of the program. Though he moved away from Iran in 2015 and is now based in the US, he continues to teach a distance course at BIHE.

Others BIHE students had similar trajectories. Niknaz Aftahi went from BIHE to the University of California-Berkeley, where she studied architecture. She now teaches online architecture courses for BIHE. “Sometime all you want is access to an architecture book, access to a physics solution, but you don’t have it and it’s so frustrating,” Aftahi says. “I have experienced that and so now I really want to help.” Aftahi’s husband, who also studied at BIHE briefly, teaches computer science to students back in Iran.

Davoudi was eventually able to leave Iran when the government loosened up the passport restrictions for Baha’is. She travelled to the US and enrolled in graduate school at Indiana University, the same school with which she had taken undergraduate correspondence classes. As soon as she received her doctorate in psychology, she began to teach at BIHE online. Davoudi, now a clinical psychologist based in the US, considers teaching at BIHE one of the most rewarding parts of her professional life

Today, the institute has about 700 faculty members, including the volunteer professors teaching online courses from around the world.

Though teaching at BIHE is considered illegal by the Iranian government, many non-Baha’is within Iran have volunteered to help. Mobasher recalls a time when a professor from a well-known university in Iran got wind of the situation, and volunteered to teach any course they needed. “It was dangerous for him,” says Mobasher. “If the government found out that he was helping BIHE he would probably be in trouble. He was not a Baha’i. I considered that a precious achievement.”

To survive as an underground institute in Iran requires more than just a faculty. The Baha’i community’s members help to sustain the institute, often at great personal cost.

Families that host classes in their homes are putting their livelihoods and even lives in danger. But they continue to chip in. “Some of these families have little children, and the kids learn to be quiet when there is an ongoing class in the living room,” says Aftahi. “Sometimes neighbors would lend chairs, dads would give rides, and moms would cook. The whole community is trying to make it work.

While students pay a minimal fee for attending the institute, costs are low because the teaching is voluntary and there is no university campus. Even then, students unable to pay are allowed to study for free, and the rest of the cost is borne by the Baha’i community.

How to learn when learning can get you killed

While students in most universities suffer from the stress of being unprepared for examinations or having overdue assignments, students at BIHE stress about getting arrested.

Aftahi recalls the caution they would have to exercise constantly. When going to classes in someone’s living room or basement, students would try to avoid attracting attention. “We would go one by one,” says Aftahi, “so that neighbors would not see a group of people going to someone’s house at the same time.”

Once inside, they would have to be vigilant. “Most of the time there is someone looking, at the door. He would be reading the newspaper or doing something but it was obvious that he was watching us,” says Aftahi. Likely, it was a government agent, watching and reporting on the group.

The Iranian government’s interest in BIHE waxes and wanes; when there’s an uptick in threats and arrests, classes are held mostly online and the institute is less likely to accept volunteer faculty. As a result, it’s taken some students—depending on when they’ve enrolled—several more years than is typical to earn the credits required for an undergraduate degree.

Over the 30 years the institute has been functioning, the Iranian government has periodically carried out waves of raids, mass arrests, and confiscations of books, laptops, and lab equipment. In the last major wave of arrests, about five years ago, the government jailed 20 people from BIHE’s administration, faculty, and student body, and interrogated over a 100, says Mobasher, who was head of BIHE’s psychology program at the time.

At one point, Mobasher got a call from Iran’s intelligence service asking him to come to a specific address, where he was interrogated for over two hours. They told him to draw an organizational chart of BIHE and provide the names of all the students, instructors, and administrators. He refused to give the students’ names, but knew that they already had the names of all the instructors and administrators and complied with that part of the demand.

The man interrogating Mobasher was young, and the psychology professor realized that he probably had many misconceptions about the Baha’is community. Likely, the interrogator had been indoctrinated to believe the Baha’i were involved in espionage, leaking information about Iran to hostile countries. “I told him ‘How is that possible? You are not even allowing Baha’is to open a bakery, let alone getting government jobs that would give them access to important information,’” says Mobasher

The young man then said he was worried that the head of the Baha’i community in Israel might order Baha’is in Iran to arm themselves and fight against the government. When he learned that Baha’is are forbidden by their religion to carry a gun or harm anyone, he was surprised.

“That is what [Iranian intelligence agents] are told,” says Mobasher. “Because they need some excuse—otherwise they would wonder why should they arrest these peaceful people just for being in their houses and studying chemistry, psychology, and sociology.”

Mobasher and the interrogator spoke about the Baha’i faith and history; later the young man asked Mobasher about life in England, and the differences between Westerners and Iranians. Though Mobasher was interrogated a second time for half an hour, he was not arrested.

Through the raids and arrests the institute has managed to stay open for three decades. Aftahi recalls one raid in May 2011 when, while government officials were arresting professors in one location, classes continued on elsewhere. As one physics professor was being taken into government custody, he asked his teaching assistant—Aftahi’s friend—to continue the class as usual.

“Always people take over,” says Aftahi. “When someone is arrested, someone else comes and takes over.” Recently, she says, the dean of BIHE was arrested, but others stepped up to cover the most essential tasks. One is to make sure that the institute’s website stays functional. “The internet is pretty slow in Iran generally, and the BIHE website is continuously hacked by the government,” says Aftahi. “But they are keeping up the website and doing a great job.”

Even under these stressful conditions, BIHE students strive for a semblance of normalcy. “The students are facing challenges that ordinary students would not face, and therefore we have to accommodate them,” says Behrooz Sabet, who has been teaching online, designing curriculum, and advising students at BIHE since 1990. But at the same time, Sabet—a Baha’i who left Iran after the revolution and got his doctorate at the State University of New York at Buffalo—says that despite the extreme conditions they face, his students communicate their problems more or less the same way as students anywhere in the world. “They say ‘sorry for not being able to send my assignment, I’m going to do that in the next few days,’” says Sabet. “They would not come to us and say ‘oh my god I am under so much pressure because of the situation of Baha’is in Iran or because my father was in prison.’”

The oppression of Baha’is in Iran doesn’t come up; course discussions are purely academic. “It’s not a normal teaching environment,” says Sabet. “But we try our best to make it a normal learning process.

The struggle to gain recognition outside Iran

The Iranian government does not recognize any BIHE degrees, and refuses to recognize graduate degrees earned by BIHE graduates at universities outside the country—effectively making BIHE enrollment a scarlet letter in Iran. Yet, gradually, BIHE has been able to ensure that universities outside Iran accept students from the institute and recognize their qualifications.

When Aftahi completed her undergraduate architecture course at BIHE in 2010, she moved to the US as a refugee and started the application process for grad school. She found it daunting because of the logical gymnastics required to explain her background. Aftahi had to explain that BIHE is not recognized within Iran because of religious discrimination—one barely ever discussed in the US—and not a matter of the academic standards of the institute. Aftahi was eventually admitted to the architecture department at the College of Environmental Design at UC-Berkeley, but still had to convince the admissions office to accept her transcripts. That wasn’t all that simple, since BIHE cannot give out an official degree, only a certificate listing the courses the student has completed.

Diane Hill, then assistant dean for academic affairs at Berkeley, recalls researching the human rights situation of Baha’is in Iran after hearing about Aftahi’s case. She brought the case to the then dean of the graduate division, Andrew Szeri. One of the requirements for graduate admission to any University of California campus is holding a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution—so they would have to make an exception for BIHE.

“Since there was no opportunity whatsoever for Baha’is to gain a bachelor’s degree within Iran from an accredited institution, dean Szeri made the decision that the requirement would not be held against any student applying to be a student in graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley,” says Hill. Aftahi became the first BIHE student admitted to Berkeley.

Having faculty from universities across the world teach at BIHE has been helped it gain wider acceptance. Mobasher believes having letters of recommendation from BIHE professors who also taught at US universities was one of the reasons he was accepted to graduate school in England. The global faculty also establishes formal relationships with universities outside of Iran, creating more opportunities for BIHE students to get world-class post-graduate education.

These days, BIHE students are seen as able to hold their own with the most well-off and best-educated in the world; in the past decade, you could find BIHE grads on the campuses of Yale, Berkeley, Columbia, and more.

Attacking the core of a community

Discrimination against the Baha’i community within Iran continues even today. A September 2016 report on the state of human rights by the United Nations Secretary General found that the community is the most “severely persecuted religious minority” in Iran. Baha’is are routinely prohibited from holding peaceful gatherings, Baha’i owned businesses are often shut down or vandalized by the authorities, and Baha’is are still not given access to jobs in both the public and private sectors. The report also found that religious, judicial, and political leaders regularly make inflammatory comments that incite hatred against Baha’is. For example, in a May 2016 public sermon, Ayatollah Imami Kashini, a senior Iranian Muslim cleric, referred to the Baha’i as a “polluted sect” and “the enemy.”

Bahai’s continue to be denied access to universities. Many believe this is a strategic move, designed by the Iranian government to economically and socially disempower the community.

“The government is very adamant and persistent in diminishing this religious minority group in Iran,” says Mobasher. “They found that one of the best ways to do that is just depriving them of education so that this community gradually diminishes economically.”

In a September 2016 letter to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Baha’i International Community, argued that the university ban had crippling economic consequences not only for the community but the country at large.

The best response, then, is to educate Baha’i youth at all costs.

“This was the most effective way to safeguard the continuity of the Baha’i community, because the goal of the government was basically to eliminate…culture and education in the Baha’i community and therefore let it die out by itself,” says Sabet. “[BIHE] is a unique educational experience, perhaps one of the unique experiences of higher education in the 20th century. [It’s] an example of resisting in a nonviolent, constructive way rather than resorting to violence or creating a disruption for the government.”

The 2016 UN report noted that Iranian authorities deny claims of discrimination and say that members of the Baha’i community have access to both education and jobs in the country. Shortly after, the Baha’i International Community issued a report in October 2016 claiming that representatives of the Iranian government have consistently misrepresented the way that the community is treated in Iran at the United Nations and other international forums.

“You know Baha’is are a minority in Iran, and…they are dealt [with] under the so-called citizen’s contract. Under this citizenship contract, they enjoy all the privileges of any citizen in Iran,” Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary of the Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council on Oct. 31, 2014. “They have professors at universities. They have students at university. So they enjoy all the possibilities and privileges.”

According to Baha’i International Community, 90 Baha’is are currently imprisoned because of their religious beliefs, including seven Iranian Baha’i leaders. Since 2005, 860 Bahai’s have been arrested.

For those who study at BIHE, uncertainty and fear of arrest or other government retribution remains constant. “You have a physics class but you never know whether tomorrow your physics professor is going to be in the class or is going to be in prison,” says Aftahi. “They may come and shut down the place where your classes are held. You cannot plan for your future.”