Iran's Acting Education Minister Threatens Students, Professors
Iran's acting education minister Reza-Morad Sahraei, a life-long Basij operator, has threatened protesting university students and professors with expulsion.
Iran's acting education minister Reza-Morad Sahraei, a life-long Basij operator, has threatened protesting university students and professors with expulsion.
In an audio recording of Sahraei’s meeting at Farhangian University, a public teacher training university where he currently serves as rector, Sharaei says this university is more important than the Revolutionary Guard's universities in Iran and everyone who speaks out against the regime will be identified and expelled.
He said "the red line is the existence of the regime," and anyone who crosses it would not have a place in the university. Anyone who took part in the recent protests, even minimally, will be identified in the near future and will be expelled, he said in the leaked audio. “Professors who would not move in the framework set by the regime will not have a place in this university,” he said, adding, “Record this and tell everyone about it.”
"The regime wants to train forces for itself in Farhangian University, and when someone does not accept the system, they do not belong here," he claimed.
The interim minister has not yet been approved in his post, but his appointment seems in line with President Ebrahim Raisi’s policy of further crackdown on dissident students.
Sahrai, who is already under aspersions about his former position as a tenured professor at the Allameh Tabataba'i University, faces numerous controversies about his academic credentials. He is one of those people who were crowned as professors at Iran’s high-ranking universities thanks to links to the regime’s inner circles.
He is closely connected to former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and served as his right-hand man at the Saadi Foundation, a “cultural center” that is tasked with promoting Persian language among non-Persian speakers. Sahraei is the man who was influential in assigning many people as the Islamic Republic’s cultural attachés in several embassies under the guise of Persian teachers.
Although Sahraei’s resume may portray him as a true academic, he is really a regime agent in camouflage of a university professor. He reportedly holds a doctorate in linguistics from Allameh Tabatabai University and is a full professor there, but several graduate students who were forced to work on their theses with him as their advisor or supervisor told Iran International that he never helped them in in their academic endeavors and only showed up at the defense presentation sessions to get the credit.
Sahraei was also the man in charge of implementing policies of Sadreddin Shariati, the controversial head of Allameh Tabatabai University who embarked on strict sex segregation at the university in early 2010s. According to information obtained by Iran International, Sahraei is also mired in numerous cases of plagiarism, including his article about “morphological paradoxes.”
Serving as a loyal regime operator for many years, Sahraei is appointed as the new education minister to carry out harsher crackdown on students who have revolted against the Islamic Republic or voiced support for the popular uprising ignited in September 2022 following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Earlier in the month, the ministry of higher education said institutions under its coverage will no longer offer educational and other services to students who do not abide by hijab rules. “All universities and higher education institutions under the coverage of the ministry of sciences, research and technology will not be obliged to offer educational, welfare and other services to the few students who do not abide by the laws and regulations of the universities in this regard,” the ministry said in a statement April 3.
According to citizen reports on social media, hundreds of police who were present in Tehran since morning outside and around the ministry of education violently prevented teachers from convening and holding their rally.
“At first around 500 uniformed police blew in their whistles together to disperse the teachers … Plainclothes agents and the police pulled women’s hair and dragged them to their vans and beat up several men and women,” a teacher told the Iranian Teachers’ House (ITH), adding that those who intended to join the rally were either dispersed or detained in the streets nearby and there were only between 200 to 300 outside the ministry.
ITH said the release of all detained teachers had yet not been confirmed. “Such brutality against teachers who have thus far protested in the most civil and dignified manner is highly regrettable and a shame for the authorities and the vicious plainclothes agents and police who are against the people,” ITH said while stressing that teachers will continue their protest action in the future.
Teachers chanting outside the education department of Robat Karim
Security forces also managed to prevent a rally from forming in the city of Karaj, capital of Alborz Province. According to teacher’s account published on the Telegram channel of the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers Trade Association (CCITTA), security forces clashed with teachers most of whom were women and arrested a male teacher. They would not even allow anyone to stop by the side of the street, one of the teachers said.
In some other cities including Kermanshah, the capital of, Kermanshah Province, Hamedan and Malayer in Hamedan Province, Neyshabur in the northeastern Khorasan-e Razavi, and Robat Karim to the south of Tehran teachers managed to hold their rallies.
In these peaceful rallies teachers chanted their demands including the release of Mohammad Habibi, spokesperson of Iranian Teachers Trade Association and other colleagues.
Habibi was sent back to prison Wednesday less than two months after being released on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s partial amnesty of protesters and some activists. According to his family, he was taken from the school where he teaches to his home and taken away to prison. His wife Khadijeh Pakzamir said in a tweet Thursday that in a phone call from Tehran’s Evin prison, Habibi said security forces had assaulted him in the vehicle on the way to prison.
Teachers demanding the release of Mohammad Habibi outside the education department of Kermanshah
In Ahvaz, the capital of the southwestern Khuzestan Province, protesting teachers who were joined by some parents also protested against the continued poisoning of schoolgirls and the ministry’s threats against students over compulsory hijab.
In a statement Tuesday, the ministry said students who do not comply with the compulsory hijab rule will not be allowed to attend classes. Similar threats have been made against university students.
Earlier this week, Teachers’ trade associations called for rallies outside the ministry of education in Tehran and education departments in other cities Thursday to protest the ministry’s failure to address their long-held grievances over paygrades, low salaries, and the government’s failure to pay their wages before March 21 when the Iranian New Year Holidays began.
The minister of education Yousef Nouri resigned Monday amid widespread discontent for the delay in the payment of salaries, apparently due to lack of proper coordination with the Planning and Budget Organization over the payment of approved raises.
Teachers have threatened to stage street protests in May if their demands are not met.
A large crowd of Tehran residents staged a demonstration in the Shahre-Ziba neighborhood, on the birthday anniversary of Hamidreza Rouhi who was killed by the security forces’ live fire on protesters on November 18, 2022. Scenes in the streets were reminiscent of protests last year, invigorating activists.
Following the Wednesday night protests, Hamidreza Rouhi’s father was reportedly arrested on Thursday.
The earlier nationwide protests gradually decreased as the regime killed more than 500 people arrested at least 20,000 others.
Rouhi, a university student who had a modeling career since childhood, was a popular teen with many friends in his neighborhood. He was killed during street protests after he was shot with three bullets.
Rouhi was one those protesters whose death touched a lot of Iranians, with his funeral procession and services for his third, seventh and 40th day after his death also morphed into big protest rallies.
The 40th day after someone’s death carries immense religious and cultural significance in Iran where memorials are held on days three, seven, and forty after death. There is also a historical parallel in the events leading to the 1979 revolution when 40th day memorials invigorated the revolutionaries and their protests.
On Wednesday night, people blocked Shahre-Ziba's main boulevard and set up fires in the middle of the street to stop the deployment of security forces. Soon after videos and news of the protests in the neighborhood surfaced on social media, people in some other parts of the city also held protest rallies, chanting the main slogans of the ‘Women, Life, Liberty’ movements as well as many directly against the regime’s ruler Ali Khamenei.
The rallies were the biggest in the new Iranian year – which started on March 21, indicating that the protest movement has not faded away, despite the propaganda by the authorities who had claimed “the riots” would not reoccur.
In addition to singing songs of the revolution and chanting slogans, women also removed their hijab and moved around bonefires during the Wednesday night gatherings, according to social media videos.
Since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by hijab enforcers in September 2022, sparking a nationwide revolt, the simple act of unveiling in public has become a common occurrence across Iran, and a thorn in the side of the regime hardliners who are pushing for stricter measures.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assertion Tuesday that flouting hijab is “religiously and politically haram” has prompted officials to signal harsher crackdown on those who unveil in public.
Following Khamenei’s cue, the ministry of interior in its second statement on hijab within a week, alleged that the opposition to compulsory hijab was an enemy plot advanced by foreign intelligence services and the opposition outside Iran, who through social media are trying to use it to “create deep social divides and a divide between the people and the government.”
The unrest since Amini’s killing by the police has made it increasingly difficult to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code which has become a symbol of opposition against clerical rule.