Helga Stokes regularly tutors college-level students in English as a foreign language, evaluating their papers and suggesting revisions. Astrid Kersten supervises students who are doing master’s-level projects in management and human resources.
It sounds routine. But for the students of the two-Pittsburgh area women — connected by computer from half a world away — it’s anything but. To get an education, they are risking prison.
The instructors are part of a fleet of hundreds of volunteers from around the world who teach in the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education. It provides free education to members of the Baha'i faith who live in the Islamic Republic of Iran and who are largely barred from colleges and universities because of their religion, according to human rights groups.
“There’s not much I can do from here, but there’s at least a little something,” said Ms. Stokes of Dormont, an adjunct education instructor at Duquesne University and, like Ms. Kersten, a convert to the Baha’i faith.
Added Ms. Kersten of Observatory Hill: “For people who really want education and, to work hard for it, not to be able to get it was, I felt, a great injustice. Whatever small contribution I could make to remedying that injustice, I thought would be a good thing.”
The plight of Baha'i students is being highlighted in a new documentary, “To Light a Candle,” being screened today at the Sewickley Public Library and Friday at Carnegie Mellon University.
It was made by Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari — whose own 118-day imprisonment and torture in Iran is depicted in the Jon Stewart film “Rosewater.” More than 300 cities are hosting showings of “To Light a Candle” on Friday, which promoters are calling Education Is Not a Crime Day.
An estimated 300,000 Baha’is live in Iran, which is the birthplace of their faith and where they are the largest non-Muslim religious minority, according to the Baha’is of the United States.
Iran’s constitution gives recognition to the ancient monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, although followers of those and minority Muslim faiths also face persecution, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Baha’is suffer extra censure because they recognize a divine messenger, the 19th century Baha’u’llah, who lived after the prophet Muhammad, whom Muslims regard as the final such messenger.
More than 200 Baha’i leaders in Iran have been killed since 1979 and more than 100 are in prison, including leaders of the educational institute, according to the religious freedom commission. The groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued similar reports.
“I think the Baha’is are the barometer of the situation in Iran,” Mr. Bahari said in a phone interview. “Historically, whenever there is a little bit of opening in Iranian society and politics, the rights of Baha’is as citizens are respected more. Whenever there’s been a crackdown or suppression of the rights of Iranian citizens in general, the Baha’is are the first victims.”
Tenets of the Baha’i faith include belief in one God and the oneness of humanity. Baha’i’s recognize major figures in other religions as prophets, such as Jesus, Krishna, Moses, Muhammad and Zoroaster. Its officials estimate about 5 million followers worldwide, including about 175,000 in the United States.
Ms. Stokes and Ms. Kersten, part of about 100 people in the Pittsburgh Baha’i community, have other similarities beyond volunteering with the institute. Both were raised as Christians — Ms. Stokes in Germany and Ms. Kersten in the Netherlands — and embraced the Baha’i faith after learning about it as teenagers.
“The concept of progressive revelation and the unity of all religions, it made sense to me,” said Ms. Stokes, 61, who has a doctorate from Penn State University.
Ms. Kersten, 60, who has a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, said that as she came of age in a turbulent time in Europe, the Baha’is impressed her as “an open and dedicated community that really lives its faith.”
The Baha’i Institute for Higher Education dates to 1987 and evolved from a correspondence program to an online operation. In Iran, professors also teach students in homes. While Iran doesn’t recognize the institute’s credits, scores of colleges around the world do, enabling students to study abroad.
The Iranian authorities are well aware of the educational institute, its officials say, alternating between ignoring and harassing it.
Ms. Kersten and Ms. Stokes keep their online discussions with students strictly focused on their education, not politics or religion. “We’ve never even mentioned the word Baha’i,” Ms. Kersten said.
Mr. Bahari, who was arrested during his coverage of the 2009 election protests in Iran, is not a Baha’i himself but said their story is personal to him.
“When I was working in Iran on a more regular basis from 1997 to 2009, I had to observe certain red lines — the threshhold of government tolerance toward issues,” he said. “I wanted to continue to work in Iran, so there were some subjects that I did not touch, and the Baha’is were the reddest of the red lines.”
Knowing he wouldn’t be back in Iran for the foreseeable future, he worked with colleagues who smuggled out footage depicting their plight. “I decided to work on different subjects that I could not do [before]. The situation of the Baha’is is one of them.”
Screenings of “To Light a Candle,” followed by discussions, will take place Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Sewickley Public Library, 500 Thorn Street; and Friday at 7:30 p.m. at CMU’s Jared L. Cohon University Center, Rangos Room 3.
Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1416 or on Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.
First Published: February 26, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
