Jailed professor Nasim Bagheri, currently serving a four-year sentence at Evin, continues to suffer from poor health, and her family faces regular harassment. She is one of at least 81 Bahai’s serving time in Iran, and one of a dozen Baha’i teachers behind bars.
At the time of her arrest, Bagheri taught at the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), an underground university set up in 1987 to respond to the education crisis created by Iran’s discriminatory policies toward Baha’is, Iran’s largest religious minority. As part of these policies, Bahai’s are not allowed to pursue higher education, or teach at further education institutes or universities.
Intelligence Ministry agents arrested Bagheri at her home on Sunday April 27, 2014.
Nasim Bagheri was born in 1984 in Tehran, and has two sisters and a brother. Bagheri and one of her sisters are graduates of BIHE. After receiving her high school diploma, Bagheri continued her studies in the field of general psychology at the university. She received her master’s degree after five years.
Unlike many of her fellow graduates, Bagheri chose to stay in Iran after her studies. She went on to pass the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Because she had experienced discrimination firsthand, she decided to forgo continuing her education outside Iran and joined BIHE to help the next generation of Baha’i students.
Bagheri started out as an assistant professor in psychology, but also helped with administrative tasks such as processing student applications.
Although the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology does not recognize degrees from BIHE, many universities around the world do. BIHE conducts most of its lectures and classes online, and now, responding to the increase of applications from its Baha’i students, it also offers a small selection of Master’s programs. Nasim Bagheri’s Master’s in Psychology is one such course.
Prior to her arrest in 2014, Bagheri had faced harassment and interrogations. On May 22, 2011, authorities raided the homes of several Baha’is associated with BIHE, and arrested 15 people. They raided and thoroughly searched Nasim Bagheri’s family home in western Tehran. Although Bagheri was not arrested, a few days later she was summoned for questioning. Prosecutors summoned her again a few months later and interrogated her.
On March 12, 2012 Bagheri and nine other Baha’i citizens who all taught at BIHE were summoned to the prosecutor’s office at Evin Prison to defend themselves. They were asked to sign a pledge that they would cease to work with BIHE. Bagheri and some of her colleagues refused. As a result, they were formally charged with actions against national security, membership to an illegal BIHE institute and participation in a subversive Baha’i organization. Nasim Bagheri was released on bail.
She was tried on October 8, 2013 at Branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. Judge Mohammad Moghiseh — who the European Union blacklisted for violations of the human rights of the defendants — handed down a prison sentence,of four years; the Revolutionary Court of Appeals upheld the verdict. She began serving her sentence on April 27, 2014.
Bagheri has now been in prison for 29 months and she has been given a leave of absence only once, for six days in early 2015 to attend her sister’s wedding. Under Iranian law, she qualifies for temporary leaves of absence, but authorities have repeatedly rejected Bagheri's and her family’s requests for furlough, without providing any explanations. Because Nasim Bagheri suffers from a thyroid ailment, she attends a hospital appointment every six months accompanied by a guard. She is returned to prison a few hours later.
Nasim Bagheri’s family also faces harassment. Her sister Negar Bagheri was arrested in 2015 only a few days before she was to be married; she was released on bail after two months. Her cousin Keyvan Pakzadan was detained for months at Evin’s Ward 209 in June 2016. He is waiting for his trial date to be announced.
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