Purge Of Professors: Iran Axed Hundreds Of Academics In 17 Years
Amid the regime’s intensified pressure on academia, a newspaper in Tehran has shed light on the purge of university professors in the past 17 years.
Amid the regime’s intensified pressure on academia, a newspaper in Tehran has shed light on the purge of university professors in the past 17 years.
In an article on Thursday, Etemad, one of Iran’s prominent reformist dailies, published a list of 157 tenured professors who were dismissed, forced into retirement, or banned from teaching for their criticism and dissenting views from 2006 to the end of August 2023. But the purge went beyond that, when non-tenured lecturers were replaced by "religious" and "revolutionary" professors.
The trend started after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office and continued in Hassan Rouhani’s administration and then under President Ebrahim Raisi, seeing successive governments in the Islamic Republic systematically expelling seasoned professors for their a "secular views," among other political reasons.
During a meeting with professors who were members of IRGC’s Basij forces in the first week of the purge, Ahmadinejad said that the main part of the professors’ duties is promoting “the culture and ideals of the Islamic revolution.” “The educational system and the approach to knowledge production need to change and Basij can play a role in promoting this in society," he said.
A year later and after firing dozens of professors, Ahmadinejad said "Our education system has been influenced by the secular system for 150 years... Changing this environment is challenging and complex, but the work has begun.” He also urged students to protest against the presence of “liberal and secular professors in universities.
During all these years, the regime also tried its best to employ professors in line with the ideals of the Islamic Republic, Etemad elaborated, providing numerous cases of such recruitments.
One such regime ideologue was Sadreddin Shariati, the controversial head of Allameh Tabatabai University who embarked on strict sex segregation at the university in early 2010s. After expelling dozens of professors and employing more than 100 new ones for the university, he said, “I mounted a coup d'état against Westernization, superstitions, and ignorance at Allameh Tabatabai University. I recruited religious professors so that they do not talk about secularism in their lectures.” The incumbent education minister, Reza-Morad Sahraei, was Shariati’s right-hand man at the time.
Another case was Farhad Rahbar, who was the head of Iran’s Azad University in 2017 and now serves as an aide to Raisi. He cancelled contracts of all part-time professors and one-year contracts of 168 full-time professors at the Faculty of Science and Research of this university, leading to chaos at the start of the academic year. He then put the names of 2,800 professors employed in various units of the Azad University on a dismissal list. He planned to replace them with new recruits but was himself dismissed before he could implement his plan.
According to a report from the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in 2013, during Ahmadinejad's presidency, approximately 17,000 new faculty members were added to universities payroll. Such a move is speculated to be repeated as President Raisi plans to add 15,000 "revolutionary" professors to the academic faculty of universities nationwide in the near future.
Raisi embarked on his ‘purification’ in the first month of his tenure, expelling Bijan Abdolkarimi, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Islamic Azad University. In January 2022, Mohammad Fazeli, a professor of sociology at Beheshti University, and Arash Abazari, a philosophy professor at Sharif University, were dismissed. This was just the beginning and even months before the popular uprising across Iran ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September.
Since then, a large number of academics voiced solidarity with protesters and once the protests were quelled, the Raisi administration intensified the crackdown, pushing professors into early retirement, not renewing teaching contracts, cancelling classes without prior notice, removing and suspending professors, and reducing monthly salaries. Apart from these prevalent methods, tens of professors have also been summoned or temporarily detained.
This policy, appears to be part of a wider initiative to cleanse universities of critics of the regime and efforts to suppress student protests, has also led to announced delays in the start of the academic term in some universities while several universities may hold lectures online to reduce chances of campus protests on the first anniversary of Women, Life, Freedom movement.
Tehran's Khabar Online website quoted lawmaker Gholam Ali Jafazadeh Imanabadi on Tuesday, who stated that Raisi's track record over the past two years is characterized by failure. Imanabadi emphasized that Raisi should either step down or refrain from seeking a second term.
Imanabadi pointed out that Raisi has been unable to address unemployment, poverty, social tensions, and various other issues impacting the nation's welfare during the past two years. He further noted that Raisi's track record lacks any positive points and accused him of resisting the rule of law within the country.
Former Presidential candidate Mostafa Hashemitaba echoed Imanabadi's sentiments about Raisi's weaknesses. Hashemitaba told Khabar Online that the government is failing to convey the truth to the nation regarding the dire economic situation. He also accused Raisi of dismissing suggestions made by well-wishers.
Similar to other critics, including prominent clerics Raisi met on the anniversary of his government, Hashemitaba also highlighted Raisi's failure to fulfil promises made to the nation during the 2021 presidential elections. He further criticized Raisi's administration for lacking effective solutions to the nation's problems.
Academic Bijan Abdolkarimi, speaking to the Rouydad24 website, commented that the Iranian government is generally influenced by hardliners it cannot control. While trying to be fair to Raisi's government, Abdolkarimi noted that the radicals within the government are responsible for the nation's issues, rather than general mismanagement.
Abdolkarimi added that hardliner infiltrators and radicals within the government have caused significant harm, but the public is overwhelmed with various problems, making them less aware of these individuals. He also claimed that the radicals perceive no obstacles to their destructive activities, highlighting a dangerous divide between the government and the people.
Warning of a destabilizing gap between the government and the people, Abdolkarimi called for swift solutions to this issue. He stated, "Financial problems have deprived the nation of peace of mind. Given this circumstance, the government should prioritize the people's livelihood over issues like hijab. Iranians are grappling with unprecedented inflation, and naturally, their concern for issues like hijab is diminished."
Regarding hijab regulations, Abdolkarimi noted, "When a segment of society disagrees with a law, it signifies a lack of legitimacy for that law, and the government should not insist on enforcing it."
On August 17, the Hebrew website Walla referred to research conducted by the IDF Intelligence Division. It suggested that there is a growing belief among Western intelligence sources that Raisi's chances of succeeding the 83-year-old ruler Ali Khamenei are high.
While the idea of Raisi's succession has weakened due to his performance in the past two years, some Iranian analysts, like Mehdi Mahdavi Azad, believe he could potentially be an ideal supreme leader under a despotic military regime after Khamenei's death.
Walla's analysis states, "Two years into Ibrahim Raisi's tenure, Iran's economy is in a deep crisis, the hijab protests may resurge, but there have also been political achievements. Israel's assessment of Raisi's character describes him as 'one of the least qualified for his position,' and continues: 'Raisi broadcasts something weak and much less dominant than his predecessors.'"
Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji and government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi reiterated in the past two days that the administration would not increase gasoline prices, but oddly claiming that the long lines of cars at gas stations and the consequent black market are only the result of measures to decrease consumption.
Owji said that foreign-based Persian media are behind the rumors of an impending hike, but the government only plans to reduce consumption by restricting fill-ups at gas stations, claiming that “all refineries are operating at full capacity, with 150 million liters of fuel reserves available.”
But actually 150 million liters is a little over one day’s consumption, which means a critical shortage of supplies.
"Last week, we consumed 137 million liters per day, and today we have a consumption of 114 million liters, and nothing unusual has happened in the country," he explained. A source at the oil ministry told Iran International earlier in August that the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), a department within the ministry, has released around 900 million liters of strategic gasoline reserves into the market.
Many Iranians, however, are of the opinion that the regime is only delaying a price hike in fear of triggering protests ahead of last year's protest anniversary in September. Iran International reported in late July that the government has postponed tighter fuel rationing implementation due to the same reason.
Iran has been struggling with gasoline shortages since at least mid-2022 and was forced to release one-third of its strategic reserves by the end of the year. The government, which controls one of the world's largest oil and gas reserves in the world, sells gasoline at extremely low, subsidized prices, charging less than 10 US cents per gallon, or less than 3 cents per liter, while neighboring oil-producers have much higher prices, more in line with international market rates. Second only to Venezuela, Iran has the world’s cheapest gasoline price.
For years there has been talk of adjusting prices, but since 2018 Iran’s currency has dropped 12-fold and any increase needs to be huge to be meaningful in US dollars. One of the main reasons that the Islamic Republic has not managed to increase prices amid the current economic crisis is because it faced the worst wave of unrest in years from September 2022 to February 2023.
In November 2019, a government decision to increase fuel prices by 50–200 percent triggered nationwide unrest that lasted for two weeks. Regime forces killed at least 1,500 civilians, in the worst such crackdown in Iran. Iranians are concerned about a repeat of the bitter experience.
Lawmaker Jalal Rashidi Kochi said Tuesday that "People distrust officials and their words. If we touch the gasoline prices, people will take to the streets and protest…Our approach to gasoline was flawed from scratch. It means we are doing something fundamentally wrong, and the more we try to do it right, the worse it gets."
Reformist politician Morteza Moballegh told Hamdeli newspaper that the government is the main loser in the gasoline market because the congestion at the gas stations is proof that people do not trust the government despite their repeated claims of no change in prices. "The distrust is due to fundamental policies... These gentlemen (the current administration) are trying to impose some of their mindsets, which are not in line with the needs of today's Iran and the law, on the people. This situation provokes a reaction from society and has created serious problems for the people."
In the meantime, lawmaker Mohsen Zanganeh, the spokesperson for the budget committee at the parliament, said a rise in prices is not proposed in the budget for this year, meaning that “any possible increase will take effect from the beginning of the Iranian year 1403 (in March 2024).”
“However, the government has included the possibility in the budget that it can achieve energy savings through pricing and non-pricing policies," he emphasized. “Certainly, if the government intends to take such a measure (increase gasoline prices), the parliament will not allow it to happen without prior notice."
Ali Naderi, the CEO of the government’s official news agency IRNA, said earlier in the week that the non-transparent action regarding gasoline prices that took place in 2019 should not happen again, noting that it should be explained to people that “gasoline prices are not expected to remain fixed for the next 10 years.”
"Why do people accept that the price of bottled water reaches its real cost? For gasoline, too, this matter should be accepted, and it should be transparently explained to the people whether an increase in gasoline prices is planned or not,” he added.
Minds are set on a fuel price closer to international rates but there are also opinions fundamentally different, pointing out that the regime is not actually providing cheap fuel for the nation because it gains a huge profit in the prices and taxes on automobiles.
Jomhouri-e Eslami conservative newspaper said on Wednesday, "The people of Iran are paying for gasoline at the same global prices" as they paid a couple of times more than the real price for their cars compared with car prices worldwide. “Calculate the price of the cars you sell to the people as well. Then you will see that you don't offer a cheaper deal to the people of oil-rich Iran,” argued the paper addressing the government that controls the inefficient auto industry making old-model and inferior cars for very high prices.
The paper claimed that if the decision is put to a referendum, people will vote to buy both cars and gasoline at international prices.