September 06, 2019
The appellate branch of the Court of Administrative Justice has upheld a lower court’s ruling allowing the banning of Baha’is from university education.
Baha’i citizen Hannan Horr, after passing the 2016 university entrance exams, and being admitted to Babol Noshirvani University, was banned from continuing his studies because he is a Baha’i.
This Baha’i youth filed a suit in the Court of Administrative Justice citing the decision as a violation of his human and civil rights. The Court of Administrative Justice rejected his suit, saying, “Baha’is are banned from government employment as well as university education in Iran.”
According to the judgment issued by the court, the defense presented by the Ministry of Science, which oversees higher education, was “based on the regulations approved by the Supreme Council on the Cultural Revolution, which bans Baha’is from government employment as well as university education.”
The ruling was a rare instance in which the Iranian judicial system has acknowledged confidential regulations approved by the Supreme Council on the Cultural Revolution, which are widely known but rarely cited publicly.