University newspapers on Bahá’ís in Iran
Written by mcgee on March 31st, 2006It’s not hard for university papers to find a good lead-in for stories about the persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran, since the denial of education is something that’s bound to stir up interest on college campuses.
Along those lines, we have this article from York University’s Excalibur:
Stop. Look around you. You might be in class; you might be sitting in the various buildings that make up the landscape of this university. One thing that you share with your neighbour is the right to be in school. “Everyone has a right to education,” declares Article 26, Sections one and two of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And yet, across the North Atlantic and Mediterranean seas, youth, based on their religion, are being systematically denied the right to higher learning.
This article from the Harvard Crimson, looks at the issue of freedom of speech and journalism:
You may have been stressed out during finals, but at least you didn’t have to take your tests in handcuffs.
That’s what Mojtaba Saminejad, a student at Tehran’s Azad University, had to do on Jan. 21. Saminejad was sentenced to two years for nothing more than “insulting the Supreme Guide.”
In a country referred to as the “largest prison for journalists in the Middle East,” Iranians face stiff penalties for exercising their right to free speech. Since April 2000, nearly 100 newspapers have been shut down because bold journalists dared to challenge the regime.
The Crimson also featured an editorial about the Iraqi Freedom Concert, that featured this bit on the Bahá’í community:
Journalists are locked up for writing articles that are critical of the government. Some of the country’s minorities—members of the Baha’i religion, for example—are often unable to attend university or are imprisoned on the basis of their faith. The way of life we take for granted in the U.S. and other westernized countries is foreign to the people of Iran.
For those of us who came into the Baha'i Faith through the ever popular 
