Sponsored by the MSU Baha'i Students Association, the screening of "To Light a Candle" is a documentary by the Canadian-Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari.

"In 2009, I returned from Canada to my native Iran to cover the presidential elections for Newsweek. My journalism landed me in prison on trumped-up charges, a brutal experience brought to life by Jon Stewart in his recent film Rosewater. While I cannot safely return to Iran in the foreseeable future, I still want to speak out for free expression and the right to hold unpopular ideas there.

"Soon after the 1979 revolution, Iran's new government kicked Baha'i students out of all universities and fired Baha'i professors. Baha'is are the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran, and part of a worldwide community that upholds ideas of non-violence, universal compulsory education and the equality of men and women. Hard-liners in the government see them and their ideas as a threat to their rigid orthodoxy, which can only be neutralized by removing Baha'is from public life. Denying them access to higher education is a key part of this strategy.

This film screening is the story of the struggle the Iranian Baha'is face as they strive to educate themselves."

Location:	The International Center room 303 [map]
Price:	free
Sponsor:	public
Contact:	John Everett everett.john1991@gmail.com (734) 417-4550
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