Can You Solve This? is a grassroots campaign with a mission to raise global awareness about the systematic denial of education that the Iranian government uses as a tool of persecution towards various groups of students. Those affected by this systematic persecution include members of the Baha’i Faith, human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, student activists, amongst other ethnic and religious minorities. The catalyst to this campaign was the recent incident in which the Iranian government, in a concentrated effort to persecute the Baha’is, shut down the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education and arrested dozens of its staff. Apart from frequent house raids, arrests and violence, this is another means of keeping the Baha’i community marginalized and suffocated in Iran.

The campaign, whose official website may be found at can-you-solve-this.org, employs QR codes in a creative and far-reaching fashion to attract people’s interest and enable them to take the appropriate action against Iran’s discriminating policies against innocent students. On the website, visitors are able to send a pre-drafted message to political representatives requesting their support in addressing this problem.

QR codes are used by the campaign as a strategy to bridge offline content with online content, so that people who would normally not be exposed to these messages would have the chance to be informed about the topic of education rights in Iran. The code is distributed internationally by volunteers and can be found anywhere from public transportation, shirts, stickers, outdoor banners or car magnets, amongst many other places that are likely to get a person’s attention. Once someone scans the QR code with their phone, the user is taken to a campaign site where they can watch the video and proceed with sending letters to the relevant authorities regarding this issue.

Human rights defenders everywhere are encouraged to publicize the campaign within their own networks and publications to help increase the potential of this movement.

For more information, please visit us at can-you-solve-this.org and do not hesitate to get in touch.

Here are some photos of the event in Berlin so far:

as some of you might know, members of the Baha’i community in Iran continually face discrimination from the Iranian Government. One of the many adversities faced by Baha’i youth is the inability to attend Post-Secondary Education in Iran.

In recent news, the Islamic Republic of Iran has carried out a series of raids out on 20+ homes where Baha’i Instructors were offering education to those whom still yearn to learn. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Baha’is have been systematically deprived of higher education. With nowhere else to turn, the community initiated its own educational programs.

“This action demonstrates the lengths to which Iran is willing to go in its campaign to demoralize Baha’i youth, erode their educational hopes and eradicate the Baha’i community as a viable group within their country,” said Bani Dugal, the Principal Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations.

This action is also an abuse of International law, under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.

It appears as though the government’s hope through such policies was to see Iran’s 300,000 Baha’is vanish into obscurity. A memorandum, signed in 1991 by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, specified a series of repressive measures against Baha’is, including expelling students from universities if they are discovered to be Baha’is.

It is a shame than this far in our existence as humans we still find ways to harm one another, and not just physically. I hope to see a day where we look back into history and say “I can’t believe the Baha’is were treated like that”, just as we say the same when we read about the Slave Trade.

Peace,

Pezhman

For further information on the event please visit Here

What’s like to belong to a religious minority in Egypt after January 25th? Will the long history of oppression get worsened or relieved? To better know, we’ve interviewed four young activists who represent a major portion of the religious minorities in Egypt; a Baha’i, an atheist, a secular, and a Christian, in quest for their opinions, reflections, thoughts, ideas, and hopes about the Egyptian people’s uprising which made the news for the last 2 consecutive months.

To better understand the situation, the listener has to put in mind that Egypt hosts two major religious institutions, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria established in the middle of the 1st century by Saint Mark the Evangelist, and Al-Azhar University founded in 970 A.D by the Fatimids as the first Islamic University in the world. Cairo has a unique cityscape with its ancient mosques, especially around the area of Old Cairo. Cairo is also known as the “city of a thousand minarets.”

Egypt’s “recognized” religions are Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and more recently the “Dash religion,” which denotes the Baha’i faith according the the state. The Bahai’s of Egypt, who were granted their basic rights to issue an ID after uphill trials and long waiting years, still face a lot of problems though. You’re not allowed, by state, to believe in any other religion, or practise any other rites. Egypt is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country with Islam as the recognized state religion. The percentage of the adherents of various religions is a controversial topic in Egypt, with different sources citing different figures. According to public figures, around 90% are identified as Muslim “by birth or by I.D.,” however it’s nearly impossible to estimate accurate figures, because it’s considered “deadly” to announce a convert publicly. A significant number of Muslim Egyptians also follow native Sufi orders, and there is a minority of Shi’a. Islam plays a central role in the lives of most Egyptian Muslims, however the state of ambivalence is a wide trend in Egypt. The Adhan (Islamic call to prayer) is heard five times a day, and has the informal effect of regulating the pace of everything from business to media and entertainment. Cairo also comprises a significant number of church towers.

According to the current constitution of Egypt, until Saturday’s referendum, any new legislation must at least implicitly, but ambiguously, agree with Islamic law; however, the constitution bans political parties with a religious agenda, moreover the constitution is mostly secular, except for the personal status laws which are derived from Sharia Law.

Religious minorities face discrimination and marginalization on many levels. In terms of religious freedom, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranks Egypt as the fifth worst country in the world, after Saudi Arabia, Iran, Uzbekistan and China. In addition, Egypt ranks among the 12 worst countries in the world in terms of religious violence against religious minorities and in terms of social hostilities against Christians in specific. Furthermore, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has placed Egypt on its watch list for religious freedom that requires close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the government.*

Listen to the podcast now or download it!

* Wikipedia.

The picture from here.

Mideast Youth Podcast: Broadcasting Ahead

Religious minorities, which include the Sunnite sect of Islam, Christian, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha’is, compromised about 10 % of the population after the Iranian revolution, most of them Sunnite Muslims who also suffer from discrimination as national minorities. In addition, increasing numbers of Shiites, especially after the inception of the IRI, are non-believers or convert into other faiths.

In an interview with United International on November 8, 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini said: “In an Islamic Republic, all religious minorities can freely celebrate all of their religious ceremonies and the Islamic government will protect them to the best of its ability.” Later he said again, “The religious minorities, such as the non-Shiite Muslim population, are Iranians and must be respected.” Masses of religious minorities joined the revolution against the Shah’s regime, despite the religious character of its leadership, with the understanding that tolerance would prevail.

Short after the revolution, their schools have been closed and their teachers dismissed–Christian schools were initially closed, then reopened due to pressure, while the harassment of Christians continues. According to the IRI’s Constitution, religious minorities are not allowed to hold high-ranking government jobs. They are rejected from lower level jobs as well, even factory work. They are subjected to Shiite dress codes, holidays, and prohibitions on liquor and music. They are under the jurisdiction of the Islamic tribunals.

The IRI’s Constitution enjoins Muslims to respect the rights of non-Muslims, unless they “conspire against Islam or against the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It is up to the Shiite clergy to decide what constitutes a conspiracy.

The regime has issued decree forbidding non-Muslims from renting the upper story of a house where Muslims live the lower floor. It has forbidden the use of Muslim cadavers for medical research while recommending the use of non-Muslims. It has enacted a new tax structure in which non-Muslims pay dues, called “jazyeh”, an echo of the old laws of tribute which was imposed on people under occupier force of Muslims. Religious minorities are forbidden to enter barber shops, communal baths, grocery stores and other public places.

The Bill of Retribution, a criminal law which mandates stoning, the amputation of limbs and the gouging out of eyes as punishment, regards the lives of religious minorities as worth half those of Muslims.

The 75,000 members of the Jewish community have been suspected of being pro-Zionist. Many Jews have been forced to leave the country and some have been executed.

Zoroastrians, adherents of the ancient Persian faith and representatives of the pre-Islamic culture, are also systematically persecuted. In their capital city of Yazd, at the beginning of the Islamic rule, young girls were kidnapped by Pasdaran, taken to the home of the Ayatollah Soddoughi, gang raped and forcibly converted to Islam. Their families’ complaints went ignored and they were not allowed to visit them. In one case, the announcement was made of a marriage between a girl and a Pasdar.

In November, 1979, the Assembly of Experts declared Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism the only officially recognised minority religions, leaving the Baha’is without constitutional protection.

The Baha’i faith was founded in Iran in the 19th century and believes in the essential oneness of all great religions, honouring all of their Prophets, including the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. After the Sunnite sect of Islam, they are the largest of the religious minorities, numbering a half million at the time. Because of it is believed a deviation of Shiite sect. Baha’i faith is viewed as heretical and particularly threatening by the Shiite clergy.

Baha’i faith actively seeks converts and has attracted a predominantly prosperous and modernised membership. Organised opposition to the Baha’is has existed since before the Islamic regime. The Hojatyyeh sect, to which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad belongs, has started their “holy” war against them under the Shah. At that time, a number of Bah’ais had important commercial holding, such as Pepsi-Cola; they preached non-intervention in politics.

Since the inception of the Islamic regime, the Baha’is’ religious centres and property have been confiscated and their shrines destroyed. Their members in the armed forces have been given choice of converting to Islam or being dismissed. In August, 1980, their entire governing board was kidnapped and disappeared; six months later, their successors were arrested and the pressure continues today, many of them are charged with treason and thus severely punished. Other Baha’is have been fired from their jobs, driven into exile, and arrested for conspiring against Islam.

The oppression of religious minorities, especially the Baha’i faith, is not incidental; it is part of the nature of the IRI and continues today. Since 17 Mar 2009 seven leaders of the faith are in the Mullahs ‘jails.

System Error:

As millions of young Iranians continue their academic year, Baha’i students were met with yet another disappointing result.

As one young Baha’i student from Shiraz notes, “I logged into a University computer in order to take the eligibility test. Instead of being asked about my academic record, I was met with a question about my religious affiliation. Even though officials claim I can be accepted into university despite the Baha’i Faith not being recognized, I kept receiving a strange error message,” said the distraught teen.

The message was apparently this.

I have lived my whole life in the United States, of typical white American descent in a little rural mountain town. It rather surprised many (myself included) that I investigated and came to accept the Bahá’í faith, a religion from Iran which the majority of my countrymen have never even heard of. I’ve had the unique experience of introducing this faith to a great many of my fellow Americans, and I was rather surprised to find my conversations to be magnets for the suspicious and the accusatory.

So what some of our non-Bahá’í readers might not be aware of is that Bahá’ís believe that we should investigate all claims made against us and discover the truth, and as a lot of these people knew nothing about the Bahá’í faith they instead went after a more familiar target: Islam. One of the main teachings of the Bahá’í faith is the unity of religion, and that includes Islam, a faith which the west has had an ancient feud with on top of a whole lot of bad press in the past decade. So many, on hearing that we acknowledge Islam as being true, and ‘Allah’ as meaning the same God as that of their faith, immediately set about bombarding me with their accusations towards Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

So when these came to me with accusations against Islam, I investigated; I read the obscure Hadith they’d cite or the out-of-context verses from the Qur’an they’d butcher, and respond a little more informed on the subject than before. And because the same few arguments are used over and over again, I got so familiar with them that these people began to accuse me of being a Muslim practicing dissimulation (Taqiyya) something which—interestingly enough—was already an accusation people were making against the faith to begin with.

But Christians and Atheists were not the only ones I would converse with. My conversations lead me to many discussions with Muslims as well. Some were curious, others polite, some were supportive and quite happy to see an American defending Islam. Others, however, came to discussions about the Bahá’í faith itself to attack and criticize it, and accuse us—and me personally, on many such occasions—of being Zionists, western agents intent on destroying Islam, an accusation which despite its ridiculous lack of basis is taken deadly serious, for it has already claimed the lives of innocent people in Iran and elsewhere.

The interesting thing is, whatever that society fears they will ascribe to us; in the Christian world people claim we’re Muslims in disguise, in the Muslim world they claim we’re Christians or Jews* out to undermine Islam; in the west the accusation is that we’re communists, in the east imperialists. Freemasons, Satanists, British and Russian spies… and those aren’t even the strange ones. Just yesterday I was personally confronted with the accusation that the Bahá’ís—and yes, myself included—all receive a monthly $500 “blood-money” payment from Israel. Another one in the west told me that underneath the Mount Carmel the Bahá’ís have a secret underground city where we hold the rituals of our “Dark Brotherhood”. Yes, those are real accusations, and there are people out there who actually take them seriously… seriously enough to merit our deaths.

But do the people who say we are agents of the west seeking to destroy Islam and the people saying we’re secret Muslims seeking to spread an Islamist agenda know that they’re both claiming we’re on the other’s side?

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know” is indeed how the saying goes. It’s interesting how, despite knowing nothing about it, many wish to brand Bahá’ís as that devil, but—knowing nothing about it—have to find a devil they’re more familiar with to argue against.

To be followed

As someone who focuses on Iranian society and transformation, it makes me chuckle. I know that a lot of Iranians have superiority feelings towards other cultures and for them to see an African country beat them to it when it comes to progressive paradigms and systems must be quite a blow. Let us not forget that despite all political love affairs there still exists a considerable amount of racism for Africans and black people in Iran.

But Iran could do better. It’s the birth-place not only of Cyrus the Great and the first human rights charter, it’s the cradle of a very recent philosophy that originated in 1844 and proposes the equality of women and men, the harmony of science and religion, the eradication of extremes of wealth and poverty, universal education, the unity of religions and the oneness of humanity; a philosophy that provides the blue-print for a mutualistic democracy that safeguards the interests and affairs of all peoples of the world, not just a privileged few. But this philosophy, born in Shiraz and nurtured by a Persian Siyyid was quickly banished out of Iran and into Palestine, which is now Israel. And now Iranians call it a British invention! Which can only flatter the British.

So according to some people’s bookkeeping:

Equality of women and men, universal education, progressive revelation, oneness of humanity, mutualistic democracy, human rights = British invention

Suppression of woman, suppression and persecution of minorities and majorities, the inherent division of humanity into good and bad, human rights abuses = Iranian

Hmmm…I guess at the end of the day you have to make up your own mind. But let it not be said that there is no choice. You don’t have to be a Baha’i to be proud of the fact that this movement originated on your soil. Why is it so hard to just celebrate the awesomeness of this rich philosophy and take ownership of it? And of Kurds, and of Sunnis, Jews, Christians and of atheists and of Shi’ih majorities who want to lovingly build a great society and blog about it?

*

The day Iran produces and owns a charter of religious rights and freedoms like the one in South Africa – that’s the day I’ll be buying my ticket to go home.

Doubletake TV

Adel Alhimi