Iran: Allow Baha’i Students Access to Higher Education
Government Discriminates against 800 Students on Basis of Faith
(New York, September 20, 2007) – Iran should immediately end practices aimed at barring Baha’i students from attending universities, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should quickly resolve the situation of some 800 Baha’i students whom it prevents from obtaining their educational records and completing the university admission process.
International
Baha’i organizations and Baha’i students in Iran reported to Human Rights Watch
that authorities at the National Education Measurement and Evaluation
Organization have denied 800 Baha’i students access to their National Entrance
Examination scores. The test is a national matriculation exam required for
admission to Iran’s
universities.
“This week, as universities begin the new academic year, hundreds of Iranian
students will be absent from campuses because of blatant religious
discrimination,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East
director at Human Rights Watch.
Students who have taken the National Entrance Examination can obtain their
results and check the fields they are eligible to study on the website of the
National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization. In the past, the
authorities published results in newspapers and made them accessible to the
general public. The government shifted to an electronic format two years ago,
making the test results available only to individual students checking their
scores.
The 2007 National Entrance Examinations were administered on June 28-30, and
the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization made the first
results available on their site (www.sanjesh.org)
on July 31.
This year, when some 800 students of the Baha’i faith logged on to the website,
they received an error message informing them that their files were
“incomplete.” Three of these students told Human Rights Watch that authorities
at the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization did not
respond to numerous phone calls and letters requesting clarification about why
their test results were inaccessible.
Two other students who inquired in person to the National Education Measurement
and Evaluation Organization office in Tehran
told Human Rights Watch that officials said explicitly that they had been
targeted because they were Baha’is. One student said that an official told him
they had “received orders from above not to score the tests of Baha’i
students.” Another student said that the official he spoke to suggested that he
would be able to receive his test scores only if his family renounced their
faith.
Iran
is party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
which obligates it to make higher education equally accessible to all without
discrimination. Iran
is also a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
Article 18 of which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
With an estimated 300,000 members, the Baha’i community is Iran’s largest
religious minority. The Iranian government considers Baha’is to be apostates
from Islam and does not recognize their faith as legitimate, unlike Iran’s Jewish,
Christian, and Zoroastrian communities. Baha’is in Iran cannot practice their faith in
a public manner.
Until 2004, the Iranian government required a declaration of religious
affiliation on the application for the National University Entrance exam. The
application included slots only for Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian
students, effectively disqualifying Baha’i students. After the requirement was
dropped in 2004, Baha’i students were able to participate in the exams, but
their applications were rejected at later points in the admissions process
until 2006, when over 200 Baha’i students were allowed to enter national
universities.
Related Material
More of Human Rights Watch's work on Iran
Country Page,
August 3, 2006
From: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/09/20/iran16906.htm
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