6 ms·

Why I went to prison for teaching physics

59 points by kiliancs 11y ago

jacalata 11y ago
Some more background:http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/954642 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/954642
- schoen 11y ago
  Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Bah%C3%A1'%C3%ADs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Bah%C3%A1'%C3%A... (it's severe).
- humanrebar 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
PokeTheCiTy 11y ago
No account ? Block the pop up and the black screen with your favorite adblocker
- tyho 11y ago
  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
birdperson 11y ago
How likely is this situation in the rest of the world? Can one end up behind bars for teaching at an "unofficial" school?
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > 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 11y ago
    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#Persecution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith#Perse... 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 11y ago
      > 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.
obrero 11y ago
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/shah-iran.jpg http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/sh... ). 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.
- nothrabannosir 11y ago
  Not to discredit the rest of your post, but this: > ... something Putin himself has noted. is not much more than an appeal to authority. And a bad one at that. Putin has not exactly been making a name for himself as the most trustworthy source of news and fact since, well, forever. Your post would look better without that sentence.
daily_fun 11y ago
Baha'ism is an of-shoot of Babism (a cult created by a terrorist merchant called the Bab that was dedicated to destroying anything and anyone that didn't believe in him). Babism is itself an off-shoot of Shaykhism (created by a deviant man called shaykh Ahmad Ahsa'i who believed in the existence of a city filled with women that would impregnate themselves using a Penis tree). Contrary to what they claim about being peaceful, the Bah'ai rules are very violent and they are very intolerant of non-Baha'is. The founder called Baha'u'llah was put on death row for collaborating to Assassinate the Shah of Iran. He would also routinely refer to those that denied him as donkeys, pigs, and bastards. His son Abdu'l-Baha following the footsteps of his father, would routinely slap people he disliked in the face. He would also state sentences like the following which are whitewashed in translation of Baha'i texts to English: “A Baha’i nigger is better than a non-Baha’i nymph”! Furthermore they have some of the worst punishments known to mankind. Arsonists are to be killed by being burned alive and thieves are marked on their foreheads (like cattle?!!) and kicked out of the cities to live like hermits.

59 points by kiliancs 11y ago

jacalata 11y ago

Some more background:http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/954642 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/954642

schoen 11y ago
Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Bah%C3%A1'%C3%ADs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Bah%C3%A1'%C3%A... (it's severe).
humanrebar 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.

PokeTheCiTy 11y ago

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

tyho 11y ago
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

birdperson 11y ago

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

humanrebar 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
  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#Persecution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith#Perse... 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 11y ago
    > 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.

obrero 11y ago

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/shah-iran.jpg http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/sh... ). 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.

nothrabannosir 11y ago
Not to discredit the rest of your post, but this: > ... something Putin himself has noted. is not much more than an appeal to authority. And a bad one at that. Putin has not exactly been making a name for himself as the most trustworthy source of news and fact since, well, forever. Your post would look better without that sentence.

daily_fun 11y ago

Baha'ism is an of-shoot of Babism (a cult created by a terrorist merchant called the Bab that was dedicated to destroying anything and anyone that didn't believe in him). Babism is itself an off-shoot of Shaykhism (created by a deviant man called shaykh Ahmad Ahsa'i who believed in the existence of a city filled with women that would impregnate themselves using a Penis tree). Contrary to what they claim about being peaceful, the Bah'ai rules are very violent and they are very intolerant of non-Baha'is. The founder called Baha'u'llah was put on death row for collaborating to Assassinate the Shah of Iran. He would also routinely refer to those that denied him as donkeys, pigs, and bastards. His son Abdu'l-Baha following the footsteps of his father, would routinely slap people he disliked in the face. He would also state sentences like the following which are whitewashed in translation of Baha'i texts to English: “A Baha’i nigger is better than a non-Baha’i nymph”! Furthermore they have some of the worst punishments known to mankind. Arsonists are to be killed by being burned alive and thieves are marked on their foreheads (like cattle?!!) and kicked out of the cities to live like hermits.