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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
When a young Shahram Yazdanmehr left the capital city of his native country Iran in 1979, educational institutions were being raided, shut down, teachers and students were being arrested en mass, interrogated, and many killed.

Yellowknife businessman Shahram Yazdanmehr and his wife Susan have been advocating for the educational rights of fellow Baha'i faith adherents in Iran for many years. - Thandiwe Vela/NNSL photo

These events sparked the cultural revolution which would eventually usher in the Islamic Republic.

For the Iranian Baha'i, the religious minority group who number some 300,000 in the Persian Gulf country, the persecution and denial of education faced by Iranians during the revolution still continues today.

"I was lucky that I could leave easily," said the Yellowknife businessman, recalling how his parents sent him to India, where he was able to attend university to study commerce.

"When he was finished his university, it was very, very, very dangerous for him to go back to Iran," said Susan Yazdanmehr, a Dalhousie student based in Yellowknife at the time, who would eventually meet and marry Yazdanmehr in Halifax.

"At that time, that was the height of the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran," said Susan, who discovered the Baha'i faith in Yellowknife in 1976.

"That's when they were arresting people en mass and executing them and so on. He left before the height of the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran began."

Susan had also become involved in the Baha'i community in Halifax and felt compelled to help the young religious refugee when he arrived from India.

"So I helped him. I got married to him," she said about their marriage in 1984, in Halifax. "We fell in love."

The newly married couple together was able to sponsor Yazdanmehr's two brothers, who escaped Iran by paying ransoms and sought asylum in Canada.

In 1985, the Yazdanmehrs decided to start their new lives together in Yellowknife. With $500 in their pockets, the young couple was taken in by Yellowknifer Ed Jeske, who put them up in a furnished basement apartment 27 years ago.

"Yellowknife has been very good to us," Susan said.

Yazdanmehr, owner of a successful supply business, Pioneer Supply House on Old Airport Road, still gets emotional when he talks about the first impression he had of Canada when he arrived.

"The first thing I saw was the amount of freedom that you have. The possibilities are immense in North America," he said. "You can dream of whatever you want to become and you have the opportunities to achieve your goal. But in some countries such as Iran, you can dream as much as you want but you're denied."

Yazdanmehr shared his story last Saturday, as a panelist at an Amnesty International event held in the Yellowknife Public Library meeting room, where about 30 to 40 Yellowknifers gathered for a screening of Education Under Fire - a documentary shedding light on the plight of the Baha'i in Iran.

In Iran Baha'i are denied access to the country's universities because of their religion, while qualifications from their institutions, such as the Baha'i Institute for Higher Learning are not recognized. This is done to keep the religious minorities from attaining positions of influence in the country.

"The government, they see the Baha'i as a sect that needs to be cleansed," Yazdanmehr said.

"If you believe in human rights, then you allow people to dream and you allow people to educate themselves," he said.

"The principle of education is to better yourself so that you can be a better person in the society that you live. That contributes to the betterment of the human race as a whole."

The betterment of the human race as a whole comes from the underlining principle of the Baha'i, according to Susan.

"The key principle of the Baha'i faith is that of unity of mankind," she said. "That there is one God. And that essentially ... humanity is one."

The Baha'i believe that historical figures including Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, Moses, Buddha and Noah, were all messengers of God, brought to the fore as a fulfilment of God's promise to never leave humanity unguided.

The Baha'i celebrated the birth of the religion's founder, Baha'ullah last month, and in Yellowknife, prayers were said in 13 different languages, Susan said.

"It's unity in diversity," she said. "To appreciate the differences that we have and not look upon them as negatives but as something to be cherished and embraced."

There are an estimated 50 to 60 Baha'i adherents in Yellowknife, who meet regularly for prayers and devotion, sometimes at the Yazdanmehrs' Finlayson Drive home.

The next major gathering for the faith group will take place at the end of March, marking the New Year for the lunar calendar followers.

In addition to raising their daughters Roya and Shayda in the Baha'i faith, the Yazdanmehrs continue to work with organizations such as Amnesty International to advocate for the human rights of the Baha'i in Iran.

"It's not against the people of Iran. It's against the policies of the government of Iran," Yazdanmehr said. "It's important to bring these issues to the international scene."

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