Iran International
Once again, the hardline chancellor of Tehran University has denied allegations of purging academics based on their political beliefs, instead accusing those dismissed of "moral issues."
In an interview with the semi-official Mehr News Agency on Tuesday, Mohammad Moghimi asserted that not a single academic has been dismissed from Iran’s top state university on political grounds.
“The ethical problems of some professors who make a lot of noise on social media, by the way, has been proven,” Moghimi claimed.
In September 2023, Moghimi asserted that he had “full knowledge” that some academics who had been dismissed had faced lawsuits from students regarding "ethical matters."
The latest wave of academic purges in Iran began during President Ebrahim Raisi's administration. It gained momentum shortly after nationwide protests under the banner of "Woman, Life, Freedom" erupted following the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in the custody of the so-called morality police on September 16, 2022. Following Amini’s death, many universities became centers of extensive months-long student protests.
While the law prohibits the military from entering academic institutions, plainclothes security forces and organized militia were extensively deployed to suppress the student protests. Armed plainclothes agents and vigilantes went so far as to attack students inside Tehran’s Sharif University of Technology on October 3, 2022, resulting in the arrest of dozens of students.
Academics Fired Over Protest Support
Ali Sharifi-Zarchi, a prominent member of the bioinformatics and AI Faculty within the prestigious computer engineering department of Sharif University of Technology, was among the first to be dismissed for his support of dissident students.
Zarchi's revelation of the actions taken against him prompted several other academics, such as Somayyeh Sima, a faculty member in the water engineering department at Tarbiat Modares University, to come forward and share their own experiences.
Numerous academics who were dismissed, terminated, suspended, or demoted for supporting protesting students faced arbitrary accusations. They were accused of “academic sluggishness”, “political immorality and media show-off”, and "defiling" the academic arena with their "factional and even anti-national views" by the ministry of higher education.
The purge has been widely attributed to ultra-hardliners allied with President Ebrahim Raisi, aiming to assert dominance in the political arena by ousting other politicians, officials, and academics. Former moderate conservative Speaker Ali Larijani coined the term "purification" to characterize these plans.
Academic Purges: From 1980 To Today
The history of academic purges in the Islamic Republic dates back to 1980, shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. The newly established government's Cultural Revolutionary Headquarters shut down universities across Iran for three years, aiming to eliminate dissenting voices and impose its Islamic revolutionary ideology on higher education institutions.
During that period, thousands of professors and students were purged for a variety of reasons, including their political affiliations and perceived Western influences, in what became known as the "Cultural Revolution".
Throughout Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency (2005-2013), closely aligned with hardliners, the regime sought to recruit academics who shared the ideological stance of the hardline and religious establishment. Concurrently, it endeavored to eradicate its political adversaries, namely reformists, from academia.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has also repeatedly emphasized that universities must adhere to Islamic principles, asserting that those not aligned with the regime should be barred from teaching. In a speech delivered in July 2015, he stated, "Do not employ unreliable individuals in universities at any cost." He urged, "There are good professors; employ them."
On one front, the government aims to increase the population by two-fold – and as soon as possible. To achieve this, it has severely restricted abortion and contraception, and simultaneously promotes pregnancy and childbearing.
But, year after year, individuals are instead opting to have fewer children, standing in opposition to the government's ambitious population policy. In essence, Iranians have effectively countered Khamenei's population policy – and defeated its goals.
Abortion rate undermine Khamenei’s goals
One of the ways Khamenei’s policy has been thwarted is by Iranian women opting for abortion.
Estimating the precise number of abortions in Iran proves challenging. Nonetheless, a senior health expert with the Expediency Council suggests that both legal and illegal abortions total approximately 1.3 million annually, with intentional abortions accounting for around 530,000 cases. Other authorities offer estimates ranging from 250,000 to 650,000 cases per year.
These abortions are carried out either by private clinics or through the use of illegal pills available in the market. While today's younger generation is knowledgeable about contraception methods, the government has eliminated their accessibility from all public facilities in this field.
A policy driven by nefarious motives
The abortion policy of the Islamic Republic has been quite stringent, though not driven by Islamic Sharia prohibition or a culture of valuing human life. Instead, it has been driven by the aim to boost the population for the establishment of an Islamic empire – despite causing impoverishment and exacerbating the populace's hardships with annual inflation rates ranging around 50%.
Until the fetus reaches 4.5 months of gestation, there are typically no Shariah restrictions according to the fatwas issued by most Shia sources of emulation. In such cases, the mother isn't required to obtain a license and is obligated to pay an atonement. The new population law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, akin to its regulations on loan interests, contradicts fatwas.
Unlike many American conservatives, the authorities of the Islamic Republic do not take a moral stance against abortion nor emphasize the inherent right to life. Over the past 45 years, their focus has primarily revolved around execution, genocide, warfare, and bloodshed.
Their opposition to abortion stems from two primary motives: firstly, they view a large population as essential for achieving superpower status, which aligns with their overarching agenda, and secondly, they seek to maintain a vast army comprised of impoverished, uneducated, and vulnerable individuals for the perpetuation of their oppressive regime and involvement in endless regional conflicts. But, compared to their government, the general populace is more acutely aware of the country's resource constraints, such as limited access to safe water, education, and healthcare.
Khamenei battles ongoing population decline
In the last two decades, Ali Khamenei has expressed dissatisfaction with Iran's population control policies from the 1990s, aiming to counteract the ongoing decline in growth rates since the 1980s, where it stood at 3.91%, by striving to increase the rate from the 1.2% observed in the 2000s.
Consequently, following the enactment of the Family Protection and Youth Population Law in 2020, abortion can only be conducted legally with official permits.
Law vs. Reality
According to Article 56 of the Family Protection and Youth Population Law, an abortion without a license is punishable by fine, imprisonment, and revocation of the medical license, and the coroner’s office is responsible for filing the case for the applicants. The doctor of this office is in charge of reviewing the documents and completing the details of the case. In addition to the punishments stipulated in the Islamic Penal Code, the work license of a doctor, midwife, or pharmacist involved in abortion and their stewards will be revoked and they must pay a fine. But despite these punishments, underground and illegal abortions continue, with the government struggling to enforce its law. Easy access to abortion drugs has also contributed to high abortion rates.
However, societal trends have consistently shifted in the opposite direction. Iran's population growth rate has declined from 1.62% in 2006 to 1.24% in 2016, and approximately 0.7% in 2021. Certainly, around half a million individuals—comprising roughly one million births and half a million deaths—are added to the population annually. But, if current trends persist, the growth rate is projected to reach zero within the next seven years, thereafter turning negative.
The Family Protection and Youth Population Law and its various rewards and punishments for having children and infertility have not been able to change this trajectory. Paradoxically, even the prohibition of prenatal screening has not aided in decreasing abortion rates. The pervasive sense of economic hardship and despair regarding the future weighs heavily on the minds of mothers across all 31 provinces – with this overwhelming burden prompting them to undergo abortions despite the associated risks and financial strain, all of which are borne out of their own pockets.
Thus, Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) cannot rely on population growth to bolster their influence. To sustain their oppressive regime, they depend on maintaining a populace mired in poverty and unemployment. Their aspirations for empire-building hinge on depleting the resources of the people, impoverishing them for conflicts with Israel and America, and funneling billions annually to proxy groups and sympathetic governments in Syria and Yemen. Additionally, to support the Quds Force, they must rely on Shiite populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. Ultimately, their pursuit of power relies on a strategy of impoverishment and manipulation that will also extend beyond Iran's borders.