{"id":46682,"date":"2016-11-17T16:47:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T22:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=46682"},"modified":"2016-11-17T17:40:25","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T23:40:25","slug":"46682-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/46682-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bah\u00e1’\u00eds seek support for Iranians"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Duke Omara<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1984, 19-yearold Tooraj Talebi made a mad dash across the Iranian desert towards Pakistan, enduring sleepless nights, numerous police check points and human traffickers. He didn\u2019t have a final destination in mind.<\/p>\n

But he knew he had to get out of Iran, find a place where he could practice his religion without fear of persecution, and where he could finish his education.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tooraj is a member of the Bah\u00e1’\u00ed, the largest non-Muslim minority in Iran, and he was in danger of being conscripted into the Iranian army. Because of his faith, he feared that he was also barred from pursuing higher education.<\/p>\n

After wandering the world on a journey that took him finally to the United States, Tooraj finally got the education he sought. He and others like him in Chicago and across the country are now trying to extend that dream to others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a push by the Bah\u00e1’\u00ed community to educate everyone in the educator community of the United States to try and awaken them to what is happening in Iran. Education is not a crime,\u201d said Tooraj, who lives in Chicago not far from Wilmette, which plays host to one of the world\u2019s eight Bah\u00e1’\u00ed temples.<\/p>\n

\"Baha'i
Baha’i Temple in Skokie Ill. Sept. 30. (MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Members of the Bah\u00e1\u2019\u00ed faith say they are barred from pursuing higher education solely because of their religion. Indeed, human rights groups back up their claims. The faith is not officially recognized by the Iranian government and Bah\u00e1’\u00eds have been discriminated against and treated as subversives for years, according to the U.S. State Department and human rights groups.
\nIran has repeatedly refuted claims that it discriminates against the baha\u2019i.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bah\u00e1’\u00eds are now pursuing innovative methods of bypassing the Iranian government\u2019s crackdown on their educational goals and are using 21st century technology to do it.<\/p>\n

The most prominent effort has been the expansion of the Bah\u00e1’\u00ed Institute for Higher Education, (BIHE) which was established in 1987 as a correspondence school and now is an online university. Though not accredited, students who complete studies at the school receive a certificate.<\/p>\n

\"View
View of the dome of Baha’i Temple, Wilmette, Ill.Sept. 30 (MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using virtual classrooms and other web resources, BIHE has enabled the community to produce a cadre of scholars. To avoid detection and targeting by the Iranian government, the school has established proxy servers accessible to students from inside the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cBIHE is a grassroots endeavor that was established because youth were denied access to higher education. At the moment, it is the only way for Iranian youth who are Baha\u2019i\u2019s to be able to study,\u201d said Diane Ala’i, the community\u2019s United Nations representative in Geneva.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a community enterprise, and involves the contribution of many, inside and outside of Iran, whether professors, administrators or hosts of classes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The institute\u2019s success has reignited attention to the plight of the community, which has for years asked the world community to do more to force the Iranian government to extend equal rights to all of its citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is this public outcry that is essential particularly because Iran gives a lot of importance to its public image,\u201d said Ala’i.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny policy that denies the right to education to an entire segment of the population amounts to collective punishment of that community,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. He lives in New York City, where the organization is based.<\/p>\n

More than 20 years after blocking Bah\u00e1’\u00eds from its institutions of higher education, the Iranian government has doubled down on its prosecution of the community \u201cby barring or expelling activists and Baha\u2019i students, discriminatorily denying them access to higher education on the grounds of political opinion and religion,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment there are 11 Baha\u2019i\u2019s who are imprisoned for activities related to the BIHE, some of whom have sentences as long as 10 years, and some who are married couples with small children,\u201d Ala\u2019i the UN representative said.<\/p>\n

One of the activists, Azita Rafizadeh, is currently serving a four-year prison term after being convicted by an Iranian court, along with her husband, Peyman Koushk-Baghi. The couple were accused of \u201cmembership in the illegal and misguided Bah\u00e1’\u00ed group with the aim of acting against national security through illegal activities at the BIHE educational institute,\u201d according Harana News, a publication of a Iranian human rights group.<\/p>\n

The couple, both graduates of BIHE, left behind their six-year old son in order to begin serving their sentences. Azita is being held at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, say Iranian human rights activists.<\/p>\n

A report by the United Nation\u2019s High Commission for Human Rights released earlier this year pointed to a lack of legal protection for the community, which, it said, left them \u201cvulnerable to discrimination and judicial harassment and persecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US Department of State also joined in the condemnation of these arrests, calling the detainees \u201cprisoners’ of conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Iranian government has always insisted the arrests are part of a security crackdown that has nothing to do with religion and that the trials were fair.<\/p>\n

In 2010, the New York based-group, International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said the moral criteria set by the government \u201cexplicitly requires university students to profess belief either in Islam or other recognized religions in the Iranian Constitution\u201d and only those students can gain admission to universities.<\/p>\n

Ala\u2019i said this stipulation amounted to state-sponsored crime.
\n\u201cMany of the youth who are denied access to higher education in Iran have had very high grades in the entrance exam,\u201d she said.
\nWhen Toraj Talebi fled Iran, his country was locked in combat with Iraq. Day after day, young men were being bused to the frontlines to replenish his country\u2019s army. The Iran-Iraq War would ultimately become one of the 20th century\u2019s longest conventional wars with massive casualties on both sides.<\/p>\n

His choices, he recalls, were dangerously few but clear: stay and fight in a war that went against every fiber of his moral being, or take a perilous journey into unknown lands and places, hoping he would survive and someday be able to go to school.<\/p>\n

He decided to flee and after a perilous journey made it to the United States, where he eventually earned a degree from California State University in Northridge. He is now a successful businessman.
\nIt has been 32 years since Tooraj left Iran, and since then, like many Bah\u00e1’\u00eds in Chicago, he has made it his mission to ease the transition of refugees settling in the area as they pursue their dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody should have to go through the same bitter experience I did. I can\u2019t save the whole world but I can help the people around me. My goal is to be a sponsor for people who come here and want to finish their education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Tooraj Talebi, a Baha’i refugee, came to the U.S. 30 years ago. He is pictured here in Skokie, Ill.Sept.28. (MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Duke Omara In 1984, 19-yearold Tooraj Talebi made a mad dash across the Iranian desert towards Pakistan, enduring sleepless nights, numerous police check points and human traffickers. He didn\u2019t have a final destination in mind. But he knew he had to get out of Iran, find a place where he could practice his religion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":312,"featured_media":46691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2941,2951],"tags":[3379,3380,3381],"class_list":["post-46682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2016","category-politicsnational-security","tag-bahai","tag-bahai-in-the-u-s","tag-human-rights-in-iran"],"yoast_head":"\nChicago Bah\u00e1'\u00eds seek support for Iranians - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/46682-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago Bah\u00e1'\u00eds seek support for Iranians - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Duke Omara In 1984, 19-yearold Tooraj Talebi made a mad dash across the Iranian desert towards Pakistan, enduring sleepless nights, numerous police check points and human traffickers. 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