The persistent position of the Iranian authorities in banning Bahá’í students from access to higher education is deeply saddening. The policy was clearly confirmed in a recently disclosed communication by the Central Security Office of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, confidentially conveyed to the officials of eighty-one universities in Iran, which called for the expulsion of any student discovered to be a Bahá’í. It has now been reaffirmed by the action taken recently by the Education Evaluation Organization, which declared as “incomplete”—and therefore invalid—the applications of some 800 Bahá’ís who took the national exam for university entrance for the coming academic year (2007–2008). These official acts are disappointing and shameful.
Only a few months ago, reports carried by newspapers about the expulsion of Bahá’í students in Iran were denied by a spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations, who said outright that no one in Iran is expelled from university because of religion. That same assurance was given by the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the United Kingdom, in a written response to the concern a British Member of Parliament had expressed about the government’s treatment of Bahá’í students. A similar avowal by the Iranian embassy in Ethiopia appeared in a newspaper in that country following the publication of a story reporting Iran’s covert plan to identify Bahá’ís and secretly monitor their activities throughout the country.
For more than two decades Bahá’í students in Iran were unable to enter university because the only way open to them would have been to misrepresent their Faith. Then, consequent to a concerted worldwide effort—involving governments, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations, and individuals—that raised questions about this situation, your government’s representatives responded by averring that the reference to religion on the forms was not to identify university applicants by belief but only to specify the religion on which they wished to be examined.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a message dated 09 September 2007, addressed to the Bahá’í students deprived of access to higher education in Iran; online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
