According to Amnesty International, an unrecognized religious minority group in Iran with an estimated 300,000 members, the Baha’is, have been systematically persecuted and subjected to arrests, torture and false imprisonment.

A peaceful religion with no political agenda that recognizes the unity of all religions, it has been a focus of systematic discrimination. One of the groups that face that discrimination is the Iranian Baha’i students.

The Baha’is traditionally place a high social and religious value on education. Therefore, the lack of admission to higher education is a very dire and distressing situation. The fact that a whole community is deprived of having even one educated member — a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor or a nurse — is the greatest oppression that could be inflicted upon a community.

In 1987, the semi-underground Baha’i Institute for Higher Education was formed to give young Baha’is their only chance for a university-level education. Despite repeated raids and arrests, volunteer teachers and administrators created an independent, decentralized university system that has lifted the lives of thousands of Baha’i students across Iran.

In May 2011, an organized assault was launched by the Iranian government in an attempt to shut down the BIHE. Many BIHE professors and administrators were detained. Several are still in prison for doing nothing more than trying to teach.

Education Under Fire, a human rights campaign that has produced a documentary film of the same name, aims to bring awareness to the denial of the Baha’i population’s access to opportunities for learning in their own country. The film connects a diverse audience to a grave human rights issue, a powerful story of resilience against oppression, and the need to respect human rights everywhere.

Education Under Fire has been screened at many universities, including Harvard, which is now among 50 other universities in the United States recognizing degrees from the BIHE.

The Baha’i community of Maine, too, has extensive plans to screen the video at colleges across Maine. Bates College has already hosted a show. Interestingly, two of the distant teachers at the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education are residents of Lewiston and Auburn and have been regular guests at these events.

At these events, the participants are encouraged to visit the official website of the campaign and, through a link there, send their protest to the Iranian government for the flagrant disregard to human rights of the Baha’is. For us living in this country, the truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is self-evident.

Freedom of education and freedom of information are integral to freedom of thought. Therefore, it is shocking when a tyrannical regime deprives its own population of basic human rights. When we see injustice inflicted upon our fellow human beings, we can and should raise our concern.

We should call on the government of Iran to release unconditionally and drop charges against the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education administrators currently under arrest.

We should raise our disagreement with and disapproval of any policy which would bar individuals from higher education based on their religious background or political persuasion.

And we should encourage our own universities to review the educational quality of the BIHE coursework for possible acceptance of its credits, so that those who have had the benefit of its programs can continue at higher levels of study.

Nasser Rohani is a member of the Local Assembly of the Baha’is of Auburn. He has served as a Baha’i public information representative for several years. He holds a post graduate degree in commerce and cooperative banking from India and works at L.L. Bean Inc. in the office of Information Services as a programmer/analyst.