The Australian Baha’i Community has expressed its serious concern that Iranian Baha’is seeking to enter Iran’s technical and vocational institutes have been effectively barred from admission for the coming academic year.
“The application to sit for the entrance examinations leaves them with no option but to deny their faith, which Baha’is refuse to be coerced into doing,” said Dr Natalie Mobini-Kesheh, a spokesperson for the Australian Baha’i Community.
The Australian Baha’i Community learned recently that the 2007 form for the entrance examination for undergraduate courses under the technical and vocational education system indicates that only one box may be marked for religion, Dr Mobini-Kesheh said.
The applicant is given three choices – Zoroastrian, Jewish or Christian – and if none of the boxes is marked, the form explains, the applicant will be considered Muslim. This is unacceptable to Baha’is, Dr Mobini-Kesheh said, as it would constitute a de facto denial of their faith, which is against their religious principles.
The Baha’i International Community’s principal representative to the United Nations, Bani Dugal said that such a denial of access to education violates the internationally established right to education, to which the government of Iran has agreed, and reflects yet another facet of Iran’s continuing persecution of the Baha’i community.
Ms Dugal said the Baha’i International Community decries the government’s actions not only against Baha’i students – who have been deprived of higher education solely for their religious beliefs for more than 25 years – but also against any other Iranian students who are being denied access to higher education on clearly insupportable grounds, such as for giving voice to beliefs or opinions that are not officially endorsed.