All evening May 21, the day Mahtab Mortezaei Farid graduated from George Mason University, she waited for her phone to ring.
Her father, in Tehran and too far away to attend, had promised to call after her ceremony. For a man who had devoted much of his life to educating young people, the education of his daughter carried special meaning.
A few days earlier, when they had last spoken, “he was excited, and he made me promise to send pictures,” she said.
But the call never came, and Mortezaei Farid, 26, figured her father had forgotten. The next morning, she learned from Bahai friends in Iran what had happened: At the moment her father was supposed to be calling, he was being arrested.
The Iranian government had not charged Kamran Mortezaei Farid, 58. Nor had it charged 15 of his colleagues who members of the Bahai community say were arrested simultaneously, though nine have since been released. But to his friends and family, the reasons for the arrests are clear:
They are Bahai, members of a religion not recognized by the Iranian government, and they had been providing higher education to Bahai students despite being banned from attending or teaching in universities in Iran. Leaders of the Bahai community have languished in prison for years.
And so the graduation party, planned for this past Saturday night at Mahtab Mortezaei Farid’s house in Vienna, became a vigil. Family members and friends read prayers from the founder of the 150-year-old religion, which began in Iran and considers that country its spiritual home.
The faith has 5 million to 6 million followers worldwide — 300,000 in Iran and 170,000 in the United States, with 3,000 in the Washington area.
In a husky, resonant voice, Mortezaei Farid sang a Bahai prayer. Afterward, she cradled a photograph of her father.
“The only thing he ever bought for me, for birthdays and everything, was books,” she said. “It’s so important to him. It’s just the major thing. I feel like doing this is his mission in life.”
That mission stretches back more than a quarter-century, to shortly after the revolution that ousted Iran’s monarchy and ushered in Islamic rule.
Under the new regime, Bahai university professors were fired and Bahai university students were expelled. Many Bahais were executed.
Bahais place a high value on education, and soon an underground movement began. Bahais with expertise in various fields volunteered to teach high school graduates.
Classes were held by correspondence or in private homes, and some students traveled 14 hours by bus to attend.
By the late 1980s, the movement became known as the Bahai Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). Many classes are now taught online.
The institute does not issue degrees certified by the Iranian regime, but over the years thousands of Bahai students have been educated there, and many universities outside Iran have accepted them into graduate programs.
Kamran Mortezaei Farid, an electrical engineer, helped found the program and taught classes. He is now its director.
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