Murals Protesting Iranian Policies Appear Across Harlem as World Leaders Gather at the UN

Not A Crime, a street art campaign, helps illuminate human rights violations in Iran.

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By Kylee Tsuru

A large mural peeking out over the Amsterdam News building differs from those typically seen in Harlem: No artistic calligraphy. No depictions of African Americans at work or play. It depicts a blue antelope standing in front of forests and mountains, with a bright red bar blinding the animal’s view of Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

The mural, one of 19 painted throughout Harlem over eight months, is part of Not A Crime, a street art campaign created to bring attention to human rights violations against Baha’is, Iran’s largest religious minority. Artists from nine countries joined the effort.

The campaign comes to upper Manhattan at a strategic time. More than 150 heads of state are in New York City this week for the 71st United Nations General Assembly, including Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani, scheduled to speak tomorrow.

The General Assembly session prompted Not A Crime to add New York to a growing list of cities where protestors are using street art and social media, with the hashtag #notacrime, to push for education equality in Iran.

“People from all over the world come here, so it is symbolic for us,” said Saleem Vaillancourt, the project’s coordinator, who oversaw the Harlem murals.

Iranian Baha’is focus on the oneness of God, religion and humanity in an overwhelmingly Muslim country where Islam influences the constitution. The religious group has long been persecuted for its beliefs. Its members, denied citizenship rights, are subject to arrests and imprisonment. Not A Crime focuses, however, on the denial of higher education.

Argentinian artist Marina Zumi, 53, painted the mural on the Amsterdam News Building, entitled “No Truth, No Light.”

“It is an animal native to Iran,” Zumi said of the antelope. “I found it interesting to blind the eyes. When you deny people education, it is a lie. It is blinding.”

“There are a wide range of human rights abuses that take place in Iran on a regular basis,” said Vaillancourt. “If Iran was trustworthy in human rights… it shows Iran can be trusted in other ways. It would be trustworthy in having access to nuclear weapons, for example.”

Not A Crime worked with Street Art Anarchy, a New York organization, to curate the giant murals. The artists had free rein in deciding what to paint, as long as they incorporated the idea of education equality. The street art will draw a broader international audience previously unfamiliar with the education inequality Baha’is face in Iran, Vaillancourt said.

El Cekis, from Chile, painted his mural on Lexington Avenue between 119th and 120th Streets.  In it, an African-American boy reads a book, with words from an Iranian Baha’i poet scrawled on the concrete wall. David Torres’ mural, in the Nelson Mandela Memorial Garden at 126th Street off of Fredrick Douglass Boulevard, depicts a shattered yellow ruler with the words “Made in Iran” painted below.

Baha’is around the world are familiar with the persecution in Iran. Dr. Hussein Ahdieh, a Baha’i author, fled Iran for the United States, where he eventually earned a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts.

Education, he said, should be available to everyone. “How can we expect a man or a woman to survive and accomplish what they deserve as a human being without an education?” asked Ahdieh, 74. “They can’t. They lose any chance of success.”

He said it came as no surprise that the Not A Crime campaign chose Harlem walls for its protest. “There is a notion that the black community in this country is oppressed, as Baha’is are oppressed in Iran,” he said.

Rouhani’s plan to address the UN tomorrow drew Not A Crime’s attention, but Harlem’s history with civil rights and social justice was as appealing.

“People of color have a long history of overcoming,” Vaillancourt said. “I have been struck by how people here intuitively understand the idea of discrimination and pursue different avenues to overcome it. The beginning of a new audience is in this community.”

Not A Crime’s 2016 world-wide education equality campaign ends on Sept. 23 at the Apollo Theater with a concert by the Shanbehzadeh Ensemble, an Afro-Iranian musical group.

Photos by Kylee Tsuru.

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