BIHE
2012-01-05 Allan Rock and Lloyd Axworthy’s article entitled “Canadians Can Help Stop the Persecution of Iran’s Baha’i” is published on The Huffington Post in which they expressed concern about the unrelenting persecution of members of the Baha’i faith, Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. Baha’is say they are the biggest religious minority in Iran and estimate their numbers at about 300,000. In Iran political prisoners are routinely tortured and some executed.
2011-10-19 Academics in Australia protested to Iranian ambassador about educational discrimination against Baha’is in Iran. “Fazel Naghdy has gathered signatures from 73 academics, including University of Ballarat vice-chancellor David Battersby, objecting to the longstanding ban on Baha’is attending university, and the arrest earlier this year of 16 Baha’i academics.”
2011-05-19 The Iran regime arrest those associated with the BIHE. “Many of them remain in prison today, not knowing their fate. Their sole offence was to try to educate their young. Two of those arrested are graduates of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education. They were charged with teaching without valid accreditation. The Iranian authorities confiscated their U of O degrees and then alleged that they had never earned them.”
2009-06 Hopes for reform in Iran were raised.
2007 The BIHE offers 32 university-level programs across 5 faculties and continues to develop and deliver academic programs in Sciences, Engineering, Business & Management, Humanities, and Social Sciences. BIHE provides its students with the necessary knowledge and skills to not only persevere and succeed in their academic and professional pursuits, but to be active agents of change for the betterment of the world. These unique strengths of BIHE, together with the top-ranking marks of its students, have helped BIHE graduates secure graduate studies at close to 65 prestigious universities and colleges in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia (India).
1987 The Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was founded in 1987 in response to the Iranian government’s continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá’ís access to higher education.
1980s Canada welcomed several thousand Baha’i refugees who had to flee Iran.
1979 Baha’is in Iran were among the most educated members of Iranian society before the revolution in 1979. “Subsequent to the 1979 revolution in Iran, the newly established Islamic government began a systematic persecution of the Bahá’ís which grossly violated numerous human rights. One of these violations included the banning of Bahá’í students and faculty from universities and colleges. ”
1978 Professor Fazel Naghdy, currently head of the school of electrical, computer and telecommunications engineering at the University of Wollongong, was among the last Baha’is to graduate from the University of Tehran in 1978. He left Iran in 1978 to study in Britain but lost a scholarship when his religion was discovered. Naghdy migrated to Australia in 1989 and has been teaching Iranian Baha’is online for BIHE since 2004.
Who’s Who
Desmond Tutu
Romeo Dallaire
José Ramos-Horta
Allan Rock
Lloyd Axworthy
The Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) “was founded in 1987 in response to the Iranian government’s continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá’ís access to higher education. The BIHE offers 32 university-level programs across 5 faculties and continues to develop and deliver academic programs in Sciences, Engineering, Business & Management, Humanities, and Social Sciences. BIHE provides its students with the necessary knowledge and skills to not only persevere and succeed in their academic and professional pursuits, but to be active agents of change for the betterment of the world. These unique strengths of BIHE, together with the top-ranking marks of its students, have helped BIHE graduates secure graduate studies at close to 65 prestigious universities and colleges in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia (India).”
Selected Webliography and Bibliography
Rowbotham, Jill. 2011-10-19. “Call for Iran to release Baha’i academics.” The Australian.
Links
http://www.bihe.org
http://www.bihe.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=198
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/allan-rock/bahai-iran-politics_b_1186039.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/call-for-iran-to-release-bahai-academics/story-e6frgcjx-1226170010998
