It’s Day 4 of 7. I’m thinking of this man, previously unknown to me, who is among the seven innocent Baha’is now entering their eighth year of imprisonment in two Iranian jails.  He — and his six partners in the most benevolent, world-minded sort of “crime” you could imagine — are the focus for the international #7Bahais7Years campaign, and this is my attempt to honour Mr. Naeimi. This probably isn’t what Danny and Pej had in mind; the bulk of the campaign they asked me to contribute to involves social media, an area where I have only narrow and entry-level eptitude. These friends, among others that I’m close to, have only 1 or 2 degrees of separation from these sacrificial lions. The Seven are enemies of an insecure state simply because of their membership in an often-ostracized community, which has been subject to nearly two centuries of bigoted slander from the entrenched shiah orthodoxy in what was once Persia, now Iran. I learn more of this tragic, heroic and underreported story of the Quietly Magnificent Seven, prisoners of conscience in Iran for a week of years. I call to remembrance people that I don’t know, because when I read their stories, they are no longer strangers.

Mr. Naeimi, circa 2005 or so.

When I was young, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. So did Afif Naeimi. I was undone, for most medical schools, by my underwhelming performance in university chem and biology labs. At the progressive school I came the closest to being selected for, my clumsy interview performance likely roasted my goose. Mr. Naeimi? Now that’s a different story. He’s 53 now, which means that when he graduated from high school, a superb student, the Islamic Republic of Iran was in place, and a member of the “detestable Baha’i sect” was automatically disqualified from university. This is still the case in 2015.

Mr. Naeimi was a bitter brand of pioneer. Unable to pursue higher education, unable to or unwilling to leave his homeland, he took on the leadership of his father-in-law’s business. (Even fanatical theocracies like the economy to prosper.) He raised a family. He taught children’s moral education classes, encouraged youth like him who were deprived of education, and generally sought to inspire and teach his beleaguered community. Generations of young Baha’is have now, like him, had to chart alternate courses after high school. What a blow for them, but also what a loss for their country! Self-inflicted wounds…

And Twitter tells me another thing I did not know. Frank Z isn’t my closest buddy — I suspect he has little time for basketball — but we are well acquainted. As I was about to finish my stranger’s appreciation, Frank tweeted this: “Remembering my dear friend Afif Naeimi…7 years in prison…”

One degree of separation, from comfy Ottawa to hellish Gohardasht.