DOCUMENT -
IRAN: JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN IRAN
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
JOINT
PUBLIC STATEMENT
31 May 2012
AI Index:
MDE 13/033/2012
Abdorrahman
Boroumand Foundation * Amnesty International * Arseh Sevom ARTICLE 19 * Bahá'í
International Community * Committee of Human Rights Reporters * Cairo Institute
for Human Rights Studies * Green Students for a Democratic Iran - Southern
California * Human Rights Activists in Iran * Human Rights Watch *
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran * International Federation for
Human Rights * Iran Human Rights Documentation Center * Iranian League for the
Defence of Human Rights * Society to Combat Discrimination in Education *
Iranian Democratic Student Association of George Washington University * United
for Iran
Joint
Statement on the Right to Education and Academic Freedom in Iran
The above
signatories representing 17 human rights and student organizations express deep
concern about the alarming state of academic freedom in the Islamic Republic of
Iran, in particular violations of the rights to freedom of expression,
association, and assembly on campuses; and institutionalized procedures that allow
authorities arbitrarily to expel and suspend students, and fire graduate
instructors on the basis of their political views or activities. Over six
hundred students, as well as some university lecturers, have been arrested
since 2009, many of whom have subsequently been imprisoned, and hundreds
deprived of education, as a result of their political activities.
The right
to education for all persons without discrimination is explicitly guaranteed
under international instruments, which Iran has accepted or to which it is
party, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International
Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the UNESCO
Convention against Discrimination in Education. It is also guaranteed
under Iran’s Constitution. The International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD) further protect the rights of individuals to freedom of
opinion, expression, association, and assembly, and prohibit discrimination
against any person due to their race, sex, religion or belief, ethnicity, or
political or other opinion. The ICCPR also protects the right of minorities, in
community with others, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice
their own religion, and to use their own language.
In the International Covenant on Economic Social and
Cultural Rights’ General Comment 13 from 1999, academic freedom is explained as
including:
“the liberty of individuals to express freely opinions about
the institution or system in which they work, to fulfill their functions
without discrimination or fear of repression by the State or any other actor,
to participate in professional or representative academic bodies, and to enjoy
all the internationally recognized human rights applicable to other individuals
in the same jurisdiction.”
Additionally, General Comment 13 of the ICESCR states that
“the denial of academic freedom of staff and students” would be a violation of
Article 13 of the ICESCR.
UNESCO’s 1997 Policy Recommendation Concerning the Status of
Higher Education Teaching Personnel also provides that the right to education
“can only be fully enjoyed in an atmosphere of academic freedom and autonomy
for institutions of higher education.” Academic freedom is defined as:
“the right without constriction by prescribed doctrine, to
freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom of carrying out research and
disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express
opinion[s], freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in
professional and representative academic bodies […] without discrimination of
any kind and without fear of repression by the state or any other source.”
The UNESCO Policy further provides that professors should
not be forced to instruct against their own best knowledge and conscience, to
use curricula or methods contrary to international human rights standards, or
be subject to dismissal for any reason without sufficient cause related to
professional conduct and demonstrable before independent and impartial third
party hearings. According to these standards, higher education institutions
should support academic freedom and fundamental human rights, ensure students
are treated fairly and justly, adopt policies that ensure equitable treatment
of women and minorities, and ensure that higher education personnel are not
impeded in their work by violence, intimidation, or harassment.
Yet, students and higher education personnel in Iran
continue to face routine and pervasive violations of their rights on the basis
of their opinions, gender, religion and ethnicity. The Network for Education
and Academic Rights, an independent non-governmental organization that monitors
academic freedom, documented at least 92 violations of academic rights in Iran
in 2011. According to the largest independent student organization in Iran,
Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat, between March 2009 and February 2012, there were at
least 396 cases of students banned from further study by the Ministry of
Science, Research, and Technology as a result of their peaceful political or
other dissent. Additionally, at least 634 students were arrested by security
and intelligence organs and 254 students convicted for similar reasons, with
the correlated impact on their ability to continue their education. The
Ministry of Science, Technology, and Research declared Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat
an “illegal” union in 2009, on grounds that it “engaged in activities that
endangered national security.”
The organizations said that they had gathered information
that the Iranian authorities have threatened, suspended, arrested, prosecuted,
and sentenced student activists for peaceful criticism of government policies
on a regular basis. Officials also have routinely shut down hundreds of student
gatherings, publications, and independent organizations. More than 30 students
are currently serving long prison sentences in Iran solely for exercising their
rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly by expressing their opinions,
participating in demonstrations, or membership of an independent student
organization critical of government policies. Combined, these students have
been sentenced to more than 130 years in prison, in some cases up to 15 years.
The organizations expressed further concern that the Iranian
government also appears to vet students for admission to graduate programs as
well as applicants to higher education teaching posts based on their
ideological views. The Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution sets
ideological and political requirements for students seeking higher education as
a strategy of deterring dissent on university campuses. These regulations
require students to have faith in Islam or other state-recognized religions,
and be judged “not to be hostile” to the Islamic Republic, and free from “moral
corruption.” The regulations are then used by the Ministry of Intelligence, the
Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and university “disciplinary
committees” to arbitrarily pressure and punish students on the basis of their
views, including banning them from admission and enrollment. As such they
violate Article 3 of the Iranian Constitution guaranteeing the right to
education for all citizens.
The organizations also highlighted that Iran’s paramilitary
and intelligence apparatuses, including the Basij militia, maintain an active
presence on university campuses and engage in violent confrontations with
students, including repeated attacks on peaceful gatherings and dormitories
leading to serious injuries and the deaths of several students. While such
attacks on Iranian university campuses are not new, an increased number of
instances have been carried out across the country since the 2009 disputed
elections.
In addition, Iran’s minorities face systematic deprivation
and discrimination in higher education. Authorities have prevented--and
specifically targeted--members of the Bahá’í faith from pursuing higher
education solely on the basis of their religious beliefs, as specified in
regulations by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution that require
faith in Islam or state-recognized minority religions that exclude the Bahá’í
community. The organizations said they were aware of hundreds of qualified
Bahá’í students who are banned from entering public and private universities
and vocational training institutes in Iran. In 2011, authorities raided the
Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), an online correspondence
university created in 1987, and arrested and jailed thirty members of the BIHE.
At least nine educators have been convicted of charges relating to the peaceful
exercise of their right to freedom of expression, association, and assembly, of
whom up to seven are currently believed to be in prison.
Student activists that advocate for ethnic minority rights
often face the harshest punishments by Iranian authorities for voicing their
discontent with discrimination against them. This includes arbitrary and
sometimes violent arrests, heavy sentences, and, in some instances, the death sentence.
For example, in 2011, four members of the Democratic Union of Kurdish Students
were arrested and several others summoned to security and intelligence offices.
Furthermore, discrimination against women has increased
within Iran’s higher education system. Gender segregation introduced recently
in some universities raises questions about whether women and men will continue
to enjoy equal access to the same quality of higher education, subject to
capacity, as is required under international law. Reports of quotas restricting
women’s admission to specific university programs implemented by the Ministry
of Science, Research and Technology, indicate that women are facing increasing
restrictions in their ability to exercise their right to access higher education
without discrimination. The quotas appear designed to reduce women’s access to
specific fields of study and increase the overall proportion of male admission
to Iranian universities. Such restrictions on women’s educational choices
violate the prohibition on discrimination and Iran’s obligations under
international law, to ensure the equal rights of men and women to education. In
addition, in a recent disturbing incident at the Roudehen Branch of Islamic
Azad University in April, university security personnel insulted and beat
female students whom they believed were not complying with hijab [Islamic
dress] standards.
The situation of higher education teaching personnel is not
much better. The Iranian authorities have dismissed over one hundred academics
from their posts since the 2009 election on the basis of their political views
and dissent against the government contrary to their obligations under Article
13 of the ICESCR to ensure academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Several
university lecturers are serving prison sentences solely for peacefully
expressing opposing views from the state.
Finally, the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology
has instituted a program of “adapting” certain fields of study to Islamic
ideology as defined by the government, including law, women’s studies, human
rights, management, arts and cultural management, sociology, social sciences,
philosophy, psychology, and political science. Such a policy amounts to a
violation of academic freedom through direct censorship and ideological control
of higher education.
The organizations strongly urge the Iranian authorities to
fulfill Iran’s international obligations to ensure respect for the right to
education and academic freedom by:
• Releasing
immediately and unconditionally all Iranian students and higher education
personnel who have been jailed for peacefully exercising their rights to
freedom of expression, association, and assembly, including educators at the
Baha’i Institute of Higher Education, and including those who have expressed
political opinions (lists provided below);
• Ending
the systemic identification and targeting of students due to their beliefs, or
their religious, political or civic activities, and revising regulations for
admissions and “disciplinary committees” to ensure they uphold and respect the
principles of free expression, assembly, and association;
• Removing
all intelligence units and Basij paramilitary units from university campuses;
• Allowing
peaceful, independent Iranian student organizations to operate freely and
without interference from government authorities and organs;
• Abolishing
discriminatory policies against women, including the quota system that
restricts women’s participation in higher education, gender segregation which
may lead to women experiencing discrimination in higher education, and
restrictions on campuses and fields of study in which women can enroll; and
ending enforcement of clothing standards that violate the rights to privacy,
freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief;
• Abolishing
all policies and practices that discriminate against or otherwise violate the
rights of religious and ethnic minorities in Iran, particularly the Baha'i
community, including in regard to their access to higher education and academic
freedom;
• Ending
the practice of hiring, promoting or firing higher education teaching personnel
based on their personal and political opinions and establishing independent
university committees to review and reinstate professors that have been
dismissed on ideological and politically motivated grounds; and
• Ensuring
that the governance, curricula and procedures for enrollment in universities
are independent from government control and free from ideological vetting,
including by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and that they
adhere to international standards of academic freedom outlined by UNESCO and
the ICESCR.
Students imprisoned in Iran
Bahareh Hedayat; Zia Nabavi; Majid Dorri; Majjid Tavakoli;
Ieghan Shahidi; Ali-Akbar Mohammadzadeh; Ali Malihi; Hassan Asadi Zeidabadi;
Hamed Omidi; Saeed Jalalifar; Mehdi Khodaie; Milad Karimi; Babak Dashab; Hamed
Rouhi-Nejad; Hossein Ronaghi-Maleki; Shahin Zeinali; Arash Sadeghi; Javad
Alikhani; Omid Kokabi; Habibollah Latifi (on death row); Shabnam Madadzadeh;
Atefeh Nabavi; Fereshteh Shirazi; Afshin Shahbazi; Rouzbeh Saadati; Mehrdad
Karami; Ali Jamali; Mohammad Ahadi; Rouhollah Rouzi-Talab; Sama Nourani; Emad
Bahavar; and Kaveh Rezaei Shiraz.
Higher education personnel imprisoned in Iran
Masoud Sepehr; Ghorbanali Behzadian Nezhad; Ghasem
Sholeh-Saadi; Davoud Soleimani; Mohsen Mirdamadi; Zahra Rahnavard (house
arrest); and Ahmad Miri.
BIHE educators
Mahmoud Badavam; Riaz Sobhani; Ramin Zibaie; Farhad Sedghi;
Nooshin Khadem; Kamran Mortezaie; and Kamran Rahimian.
Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International's
press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 or email: press@amnesty.org
International
Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK
www.amnesty.org
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