
Why I went to prison for teaching physics - kiliancs
http://www.technologyreview.com/article/543876/my-unwanted-sabbatical/
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jacalata
Some more
background:[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/954642](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/954642)

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humanrebar
The context is appreciated, but is there a better source than the Huffington
Post? The sidebar shows me a recommended headline calling the GOP neo-fascist,
which undermines the article a bit.

Though your article is appreciated. It's nice to be reminded that many issues,
like freedom of expression, are important all across the American political
spectrum.

~~~
jacalata
I don't know - I'm not familiar with the topic and found the original article
vague and uninformative so looked up some more info.

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birdperson
How likely is this situation in the rest of the world? Can one end up behind
bars for teaching at an "unofficial" school?

~~~
humanrebar
> How likely is this situation in the rest of the world? Can one end up behind
> bars for teaching at an "unofficial" school?

Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but it sounds like Mr. Badavam's crimes
were _being Baha 'i_ and teaching at a school for Baha'i students.

From the article:

"Iran’s Baha’i community created BIHE in the 1980s after our youth were banned
from Iranian universities. I began volunteering there in 1989 after serving
three years in prison for simply being an active Baha’i."

If I'm reading this correctly, the title is a bit misleading.

~~~
asuffield
You are reading this correctly. The "for teaching physics" title is clickbait,
which does not appear to be reflected in the body of the article. Baha'i is a
religion, and he was imprisoned for apostasy from Islam in a country where
that is considered a crime.

Relevant information is here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith#Perse...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith#Persecution)

It's pretty ugly.

To answer the GP's question: if you are in Iran, you are likely to end up in
prison for any form of openly displaying an unwillingness to follow Islamic
rules. If you should find yourself in Iran, my best advice is to leave at the
earliest opportunity.

~~~
rjzzleep
> To answer the GP's question: if you are in Iran, you are likely to end up in
> prison for any form of openly displaying an unwillingness to follow Islamic
> rules. If you should find yourself in Iran, my best advice is to leave at
> the earliest opportunity.

I don't think that's correct. Apostasy though is banned by law(not just for
muslims).

Also whether it's true or not that there is a strong relationship between
Baha'i and Israel the world center is in Haifa. You don't need to be a genius
to know that doesn't play ball with the Mullah's.

Any of the downvoters care to explain their downvote? Saying 1800 doesn't
properly capture that it was founded in 1844 and that by 1853 he the main guy
left, because after the previous guy was executed after he declared himself
the messiah and wrote a new sharia law, and in '50 his followers tried to
assassinate the shah.

~~~
djKianoosh
The reason the Baha'i world center is in Haifa Israel is because the Persian
authorities in the 1800's banished its founder outside its borders to the
Ottomonan Empire next door. there was no Israel at the time. The mullahs just
find it convenient to use as an excuse to discriminate and treat any non
muslims as 2nd class citizens.

~~~
iofj
The Baha'i world center is beautiful by the way. Well worth a visit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_World_Centr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_World_Centre)

Persian authorities -> let's just say muslims, and stop trying to claim that
these people are treated differently in any muslim country.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#/media/File:Apostasy_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#/media/File:Apostasy_laws_in_2013.SVG)
(note that Indonesia is not correct, people are executed there for leaving
islam all the time :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyq6WMatTEQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyq6WMatTEQ)
)

If anything, Iran is very flexible in it's interpretation of islam (events
like in Indonesia are pretty much unthinkable in Iran). Even in this case. You
see, the prescribed punishment for what this guy did, according to islam, is
not imprisonment at all. It is execution:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam)

The constant weaseling out of stating the fact, the sort of treatment muslims
give people of non-islamic faiths, and atheists (read the blog "the big
pharaoh" a bit) is very a very controversial fact : just read the wikipedia
article, the constant sentences about "a minority thinks different". Reality
is that polls place the number of muslims that want to execute people like
this physics teacher is just over 70%, and more in countries like Saudi Arabia
or Pakistan and a dozen others. You will experience the same constant
weaseling out if you talk to muslims in America. When you're in an islamic
ghetto, in Europe (some have quite nice food), they (in one case the same
muslim) will readily point it out though. Seems to have something to do with
how many muslims there are.

Of course this means that the basic article of the current politically correct
order, that humans just want to live together in peace, is not true for around
70% of muslims. Whether they'll take immediate action on that opinion is a
different matter, true, but that obviously doesn't apply once muslims are ~60%
of the local population.

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PokeTheCiTy
No account ? Block the pop up and the black screen with your favorite
adblocker

~~~
tyho
If you have ublock with advanced mode turned on you can fix it in one click by
turning off third party scripts.

[https://i.imgur.com/giCKZXy.png](https://i.imgur.com/giCKZXy.png)

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obrero
Iran had a parliamentary democracy until 1953. In 1953, the prime minister,
Mosaddegh, began talking about nationalizing Iran's oil. The UK and the USA
went by the normal playbook, bankrolling minorities, religious and otherwise
to subvert the government (like the Hmong in Vietnam, Miskitos in Nicaragua
etc.) The CIA and SIS also backed the ayatollahs who wanted to overthrow the
parliament and establish an Islamic republic - like Ayatollah Mohammad
Behbahani, Mohammad Falsafi and even Abol-Ghasem Kashani at the end.

So western readers knowing this can know the history - the secular parliament
of Iran was overthrown when the US and UK backed the ayatollahs and others in
ousting it. Then in the 1970s, the ayatollahs wanted an end to US influence in
Iran, which is when Iran began becoming a pariah. US nuclear companies were
printing ads in newspapers boasting about how they were helping make Iran a
nuclear power ( [http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/04/sh...](http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/04/shah-iran.jpg) ). This is in the years before the GOP
invited Netanyahu to Congress to scold Obama that he wasn't bombing Iran for
wanting to use nuclear power (also, it's implicit that Israel is allowed to be
a nuclear power, Iran isn't).

It has little difference from other countries - if you notice, the US has been
working to overthrow the last of the old Nasserite pan-Arab nationalist
pseudo-socialist governments like in Iraq, Libya and more recently Syria. In
fact, the US has been arming jihadists fighting Assad's secular government -
something Putin himself has noted. Meanwhile the US backs to the hilt Islamic
dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Brunei etc. which are lapdogs to the US.

This notion that the US government is against Islamic radicalism is absured.
It's true enemies are always the Qadaffis, the Saddam Hussein's, the Assads,
the Mossadeghs. The US supports Islamic fundamentalist jihadists - Osama bin
Laden is a creation of the US, banking his and the mujahideen fight against a
secular socialist Afghani government. Sylvester Stallone made a Rambo movie
where he went to Afghanistan and fought alongside the Al Qaeda and Taliban
fighters, attacking the secular socialist Afghani government and Russians, the
end of the movie credits are "dedicated to the brave Mujaheddin fighters".
That movie came out in 1988, 13 years before 9/11.

~~~
eternalban
Mossadiq was as a matter of historic fact a dictator, complete with 99%
election victory results. Let's not allow NYTimes and CIA to write Iranian
history for us as it is, and has been, currently convenient for the West to
paint the Shah of Iran as a sort of incompetent monster and do mea culpa for
_past_ unwanted intrusion in Iranian politics and society.

Re. Bahais, this is a controversial religion with roots in 19th century
mysticism. The prophet of this religion claims to be the Messiah and pretty
much every other Messiah rolled into one. He is in fact the claimant to the
2nd return of Christ. Now, should a nation allow anyone to go around claiming
whoppers like this and allowed to operate a religion (which affords quite a
lot of privs. in society). So the anti-bahai issue in Iran is really mostly
about power and politics and has little to do with the Spirit. Iranians feel
this is a fake religion that is used by West to manipulate Iranian society.
Think of it as Scientology and Germany for a perspective.

[p.s. _obviously_ the above does not condone the actions of the Mullah regime.
]

~~~
djKianoosh
I am with your points up until the generalization that "Iranians feel this is
a fake religion". I cant speak for all Iranians... anyway your larger point
about this being about power is spot on. Another aspect of the Baha'i world-
view that is likely even more important is the fact that they dont have
clergy. What do you think a government that is intrinsically tied to its
clergy is going to do?

