'Education Is Not A Crime' Event At Lafayette Library

From Tina Edraki:

A powerful new documentary film, telling the story of the Baha’is of Iran and their peaceful response to decades of state-sponsored persecution, will be shown for free at the Lafayette Library, March 13, 7-9pm in the Community Hall.

Using interviews, personal stories, and archival footage – often smuggled out of Iran at great personal risk – the film, entitled To Light a Candle, highlights the constructive resilience of Iran’s young Baha’is. Being barred from teaching and studying at universities by the Iranian regime, these young Baha’is have developed an informal arrangement known as the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE), through which they can have access to university-level courses. However, the persecution continues as hundreds of Baha’is have been jailed simply for teaching and studying at BIHE.

The film has been made by Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist, film maker and human rights activist. He was a reporter for Newsweek from 1998 to 2011. Bahari was incarcerated by the Iranian government for 118 days in 2009, and wrote a New York Times bestseller memoir, Then They Came for Me, which is the basis for Jon Stewart’s 2014 film, Rosewater.

“To Light a Candle” is a hopeful story of the BIHE and Iran. In 2015 the film sparked the global Education Is Not A Crime campaign for universal access to higher education. The last Friday of every February will be celebrated as Education is not a Crime day. The campaign has been endorsed by a string of Nobel laureates and other prominent figures around the world.

Visit the campaign website - educationisnotacrime.me

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