How likely is this situation in the rest of the world? Can one end up behind bars for teaching at an "unofficial" school?
Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but it sounds like Mr. Badavam's crimes were being Baha'i and teaching at a school for Baha'i students.
From the article:
"Iran’s Baha’i community created BIHE in the 1980s after our youth were banned from Iranian universities. I began volunteering there in 1989 after serving three years in prison for simply being an active Baha’i."
If I'm reading this correctly, the title is a bit misleading.
Relevant information is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith#Perse...
It's pretty ugly.
To answer the GP's question: if you are in Iran, you are likely to end up in prison for any form of openly displaying an unwillingness to follow Islamic rules. If you should find yourself in Iran, my best advice is to leave at the earliest opportunity.
I don't think that's correct. Apostasy though is banned by law(not just for muslims).
Also whether it's true or not that there is a strong relationship between Baha'i and Israel the world center is in Haifa. You don't need to be a genius to know that doesn't play ball with the Mullah's.
Any of the downvoters care to explain their downvote? Saying 1800 doesn't properly capture that it was founded in 1844 and that by 1853 he the main guy left, because after the previous guy was executed after he declared himself the messiah and wrote a new sharia law, and in '50 his followers tried to assassinate the shah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_World_Centr...
Persian authorities -> let's just say muslims, and stop trying to claim that these people are treated differently in any muslim country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#/media/File:Apostasy_... (note that Indonesia is not correct, people are executed there for leaving islam all the time : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyq6WMatTEQ )
If anything, Iran is very flexible in it's interpretation of islam (events like in Indonesia are pretty much unthinkable in Iran). Even in this case. You see, the prescribed punishment for what this guy did, according to islam, is not imprisonment at all. It is execution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam
The constant weaseling out of stating the fact, the sort of treatment muslims give people of non-islamic faiths, and atheists (read the blog "the big pharaoh" a bit) is very a very controversial fact : just read the wikipedia article, the constant sentences about "a minority thinks different". Reality is that polls place the number of muslims that want to execute people like this physics teacher is just over 70%, and more in countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan and a dozen others. You will experience the same constant weaseling out if you talk to muslims in America. When you're in an islamic ghetto, in Europe (some have quite nice food), they (in one case the same muslim) will readily point it out though. Seems to have something to do with how many muslims there are.
Of course this means that the basic article of the current politically correct order, that humans just want to live together in peace, is not true for around 70% of muslims. Whether they'll take immediate action on that opinion is a different matter, true, but that obviously doesn't apply once muslims are ~60% of the local population.
The problem is not only Iran, most countries with Muslim majorities have this problem. Yes, there are some exceptions though.
Also where should this people leave to? Just because they'd like to leave they are not entitled to be let in.
If you ask me: Stay in Iran or where ever you are right now and work on improving your own country and society.
Removing a government is relatively easy. Installing a new one is hard.
A "modernizing/liberalizing leader" doesn't work, as you just pointed out yourself with Russia. If the majority of the people aren't supportive of that, that leader will be replaced before long with a Putin-like leader. Obviously, someone in Russia in the late 80s would have been better off simply leaving the country for greener pastures, because the time they had with a more liberal leader was short and things quickly regressed.
Fighting for a better government is only worthwhile when the majority of people in your country are going to back you. If most of them like the crappy, oppressive government (or want something even worse), you're just wasting your time and effort trying to improve things, and you'd be better off finding someplace better to live.
It's not surprising to me at all to see Americans overthrow a secular democracy, install an ayatollah-back dictator who less than two years later starts a bloody campaign against the Bahai...
...and then to see those same Americans shaking their heads in moral outrage how the Iranian ayatollahs (who they empowered) are persecuting the Bahai in the modern day.
Same Americans? It was sixty years ago; those responsible are either dead or so old that "shaking their heads in moral outrage" is physically difficult.