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Letter of Appeal from the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility

5 November 1998

Hojjatoleslam val
Moslemin Sayed Mohammad Khatami
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

Your Excellency:

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the largest organization of natural and social scientists in the United States, and the world's largest federation of scientific organizations, with 143,000 individual members and 282 affiliated groups. Our AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility was formed in 1976 to protect the human rights of scientists and to deal with issues relating to scientific freedom worldwide.

We are writing to you on behalf of the Committee to express our concern regarding the arrest of at least 36 faculty members of the Baha'i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) between 30 September and 3 October 1998, seven of whom remain in custody. The Committee has received information from reliable sources indicating that the arrests took place in fourteen cities. We fear that the actions taken against these individuals may be part of a widespread assault by the Iranian government against the Baha'i community, which has reportedly included barring Baha'is from public universities, confiscating classroom equipment, plundering more than 500 Baha'i homes, arbitrarily arresting and imprisoning members of the Baha'i community, and imposing death sentences and executing Baha'i prisoners.

The Committee has been informed that the faculty members who were arrested were asked to sign a document declaring that the BIHE had ceased to exist as of 29 September and that they would no longer cooperate with it. It is our understanding that the detainees refused to sign the declaration.

We are aware that the Baha'i community is the largest religious minority in Iran, with approximately 300,000 members, and are concerned that Baha'is have been barred from Iranian universities since the 1980s. It is our understanding that in response to the ban, in 1987 the Baha'i community in Iran founded its own independent, decentralized university system, the BIHE.

The Committee has learned that similar raids against the BIHE were conducted in 1996, although authorities did not shut down the Institute, and that in 1991 the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council instituted a campaign intended to abolish the Baha'i community. The policy was reportedly contained in a secret document that was personally endorsed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It was published in 1993 by the United Nations Special Representative on Iran.

We would like to point out that the arbitrary arrest of Baha'i educators and the exclusion of Baha'is from access to higher education in Iran constitute serious violations of internationally accepted human rights standards as listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted without opposition by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948), including the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, to which Iran is a State Party and which it is therefore legally obligated to recognize, such actions constitute violations of the right to the enjoyment of the rights enunciated in the Covenant "without discrimination of any kind as to race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion," the right of everyone to education, and the right of parents or legal guardians to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities "to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions."

The Committee calls on the Iranian government to end its persecution of the Baha'i community. We request the immediate and unconditional release of the BIHE faculty members who remain in detention and urge your government to cease its attacks against the BIHE. We call on you to assure that Baha'i students in Iran will be permitted to pursue higher education of their choosing.

Sincerely,



Mary Gray Irving Lerch
Co-chair Co-chair
AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom
and Responsibility and Responsibility

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