Academic suppression in Iran, quite similar to any other type of suppression there, has got various levels, layers, and “modes of operation,” and even though, in the course of time, it has become more complex and comprehensive, still its history goes back to the time of its establishment, and the current ruling system, too, started its work in the early 80’s, and following the order of its founding leader, by enforcing a long shutdown of the universities, with the aim of Islamizing their educational content and purging their human force in what was called a “Cultural Revolution,” and during the reign of its second leader, too, has still managed to present its bloodiest record at the end of each decade; in the 90’s, the bloody crackdown of the student protests at Tehran Uni., and later, at the end of 2000’s, with the introduction of “starred students” (barred from their right to education because of their political activities), and by taking draconian measures to suppress the Advocacy Council for the Right to Education (ACRE), whose key members and organizers were punished with long imprisonments, some of whom unremittingly targeted by suppression and incarceration to this date, which was organized by students as such, not to mention the never-ending suppression over other student organizations in this entire historical period, and lastly, the latest bloody crackdown of Sharif Uni. and other universities all around the country, in the course of Zhina (Mahsa Amini) Movement, to the extent that in one of its latest statistical reports, HRA, the Iranian human rights news agency, has given such figures as 144 protesting universities, 1280 urban or academic demonstrations, plus over 720 arrested students (which as in most similar cases, cannot be considered to be a conclusive statistics at all). However, the hardware suppression, if you will, the very act of shattering students’ bodies and locking them up, is but one of the manifestations of this institutionalized, comprehensive, and exponentially increasing, aimless and boundary-free suppressive operation that becomes visible only at times that there is a serious conflict between the society and power institutions; that aside, there is an unremitting software suppression, masked bureaucratically, is running its course that have been operating to inject suppression into the bone morrows of higher education institutes, as if a crouching coup, all these years, and through the undulating waves of dismissals, suspensions and expulsions, mandatory retirements, cancelling wages, and other restraining measures together mounting up to a colorful brochure; thus, the following report is merely a brief review of some of the latest chapters of the suppressive process implemented in Iran’s universities, but, no doubt, the scope of the relentless war waged by this theocratic regime against Iranian academia stretches into far wider dominions beyond the present discussion.
On Oct. 2022, and after two years of distance caused by the virtualization of the classes in the course of the recent pandemic, students returned to their pertinent universities. Having been silenced and suppressed for a long while, student movements were suddenly revitalized by the protests to the state-murder of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini. Students from various universities, all over the country, stood side by side in their campuses, by unveiling their hijabs, removing the gender-segregation barriers from refectories, chorusing revolutionary songs, and by making creative protesting performances, demonstrated their peaceful protest, sit-down strikes and attendance refusals in solidarity with “Woman, Life, Freedom” Movement, and right from the outset, many university lecturers refrained from taking presence and lecturing in their classes in solidarity with their students. Certain faculty members, too, as was the case at Kurdistan Uni., joined their protesting students in solidarity, and had to bear the drastic reaction of the security and management. Instead of attending classes, they organized demonstrations and shouted slogans against the theocratic regime, declaring their demands for freedom. Such student protests spread into many universities within a short while and continued for months.
Student besij, or plainclothes militia, a machinery of suppression placed in operation at every university, along with other state mercenaries and backed by the university securities, from the very beginning, infiltrated into the rallies of student demonstrations and tried to instigate them into violence to provide a better pretext for assaulting and arresting the students. Yet, despite draconian oppressive measures, the protests lasted for months and resonated street protests throughout Iran, and greatly contributed to enflaming the movement. Certain universities played a more active role in mass protests and this is why they had to suffer a bigger share of expulsions, suspensions, and mandatory retirements of the lecturers in addition to more students becoming “starred.” In certain cities, such mercenaries were actively aided by the university securities to identify some more active protesting students and these student movements’ leaders, and they maneuvered around instilling fear and terror to put an end to these student demonstrations by committing battery and abduction against a number of protesting students along with raids made against a number of dorms.
The violent crackdown of students and nightly raids to dorms caused vast protests and led to a large number of lecturers taking an official position, and even some of them who, to that date, were known for carrying along with certain educational policies of the ruling regime, too, started harshly criticizing the presence of the security forces in the universities and the crackdown of the students in the campuses, and demanded the release of the lecturers and students arrested. After a month since the initiation of the student demonstrations, student arrests accelerated, the members of the board of directors of Student Union were arrested one after another and student demonstrations at universities were prevented from being formed; the demonstrations of Dec. 7, 2022, the National Student Day, was brutally suppressed and by an unprecedented act, from then onward, security plainclothes received the full support of the deans of these universities to establish themselves inside, next to the universities’ own securities, took into their own hand the security and order management within the campuses; after that, none of the student groups were disabled from even organizing gatherings consisting of five in their campuses.
The classes started being officially held, yet still, some students released statements and, while declaring their civil demands, emphasized that they would not attend their classes as long as their friends and classmates are not released, and up until the end of the first semester, still certain students continued their attendance boycott. The administrations forced those lecturers who had refrained from holding their classes by then in solidarity with their protesting students, to hold classes and start teaching, even if only to a handful, paired with mandatory attendance check, so that lecturers be forced to give off the names of their protesting absentees to the relevant faculty and its manager. Most lecturers resisted against fulfilling this task and registered them present, and let them participate in final exams and pass. In fact, maintaining interaction with their protesting students and exerting disobedience against the orders of the educational system and securities of their pertinent institutions, some lecturers, declared their solidarity with this movement. In such circumstances, the Ministry of Science and Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, issued more restrictive disciplinary statutes and announced them to all universities nationwide, so that the university administrators enjoy further authority to reprimand or dismiss lecturers and students, both, and, as a result, by the end of the first semester, a new wave of suspensions and dismissals lashed out.
Consequently, the security forces identified protesting students and strike participants, and then barred the identified students from entering the universities until the formation of a disciplinary committee. After that, disciplinary cases were made for them, and they were called in one after another, for one hour long hearings, in which certain penal measures were decided and announced. According a student at Art Uni., these disciplinary committees are often held outside the universities’ territory, in unidentified complexes, by the security agents of the universities appointed by the Ministry of Science and resemble more a student court than any disciplinary committee. “After interrogations, a written questionnaire was given to us to answer,” he said, adding that they would threaten to expel to force some students to sign a letter of commitment guaranteeing their disengagement from future student protests. Having been very active in the course of the movement in creative ways such as making performances, musical works, and revolutionary anthems, graffiti, paintings, and installations, the students of Art Uni., were among those who had to suffer one of the greatest numbers of suspension and dismissal.
The dean of the University above, Muhammad Reza Hosnayi, committed a purge among the former faculty members by changing department administrators and educational groups. As reported by the Telegram channel, the “Independent Media of Art Uni.,” the university security had sent a letter to the educational groups and faculties of this university in which it demanded 30-40 sessional lecturers to be barred from tutoring and these lecturers, in turn, had been informed about this unofficial order either in person or on the phone. Moreover, six board of faculty lecturers were faced with suspension or demotion by the dean. Amir Maziyar, a philosophy of art lecturer, was among the suspended lecturers who published his edict on his Instagram page. Among other dismissed lecturers of this university expelled in recent months, one can refer to Dr. Khodadadi Motarjem’Zadeh, the head of the visual arts faculty, and Koorosh Golnari, the head of sculpturing group, and Dr. Behshid Husseini, from the head administration of Urbanity and Architecture.
The head of security of this university also ordered the heads of the educational groups to penalize dissident students; eventually, after attaining their student identification and blacklisting the names of hundreds of students by the security to be barred from entering the university until their reference to the disciplinary committee in the beginning of the coming semester, and after a collective pardoning of a number of students and reducing disciplinary penalties, 12 students of this university were temporarily expelled for two semesters, liable in case of failure in fulfilling their education in the due deadline, and five others expelled in the same manner for one semester.
The dismissal and suspension of lecturers and “starring” students was initially planned in 2000’s, at the time of Mahmud Ahmadinejhad administration, and in the past years, with whatever fluctuation, has been the agenda with any administration in place, and by the 13th administration rising to power, before “Zhina (Mahsa) Movement” breaking out, was already being implemented. On May, 2022, upon departure from the country to fulfil a supplementary research program in the US, Dr. Said Madani, the sociologist and researcher of note, realized that he was barred from leaving the country, and then got arrested; subsequent to that, his leave of absence turned into dismissal, and after spending months in prison, on Feb. 2023, was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment. In addition, Bijhan Abdolkarimi, a philosophy lecturer, was dismissed from Azad Uni., on Sept., before the outbreak of the movement.
After the movement, too, dismissals and forced retirements were intensified resulting in nine lecturers of the faculty of political science at Azad Uni., Tehran central branch, release a statement addressing the dean of this university, Muhammad Mehdi Tehranchi, in which they disclosed their sudden retirement in the beginning semester of 2023. According to Roydad 24 news agency, the statement reads: “With no prior preparation, we were announced to refer to the administrative affairs and fulfill retirement formalities. Our future lecturing subjects, which were even previously registered in the system, were omitted and we were treated as if never existed and the system can obliterate us the moment it wills.” While referring to the unfair nature of the enlisting statutes at this university, they introduced them as the ground-preparing factor for the double standard policies set in there. Dr. Soosan Safaverdi, Dr. Ali Akbar Amini, Dr. Sajedi, Dr. Alireza Radmehr, Dr. Hussein Tafazoli, Dr. Dey’Dokht Sadeghi, and Dr. Muhammad Ali Khosrawi, Dr. Malek Taj Khosrawi, Dr. Bijhan Nayyeri, were the nine lecturers whose premature retirement from Azad Uni., Tehran central branch, was issued.
In addition, Soudeh Hamed’Tavassoli was a lecturer dismissed from the board of faculty members of Law Dept., at Azad Uni., Karaj branch. She, too, disclosed the news of her discharge in an open letter published in Shargh Newspaper, a reformist press based in Iran, on Nov. 2022, and wrote: “The dismissal of lecturers in Iran is by no means a new phenomenon and frequently witnessed in recent decades. A controversial dismissal case in recent years was that of Dr. Bijahn Abdolkarimi, the philosophy professor at Azad Uni., whose situation was defused to some extent by media campaigns and public opinion’s persistent follow-up. However, the tale of discharge now has come to include me this time. After 17 years of lecturing record at various law departments throughout the country, I, too, am faced with dismissal.” According to this letter, her dismissal has come about in face of the fact that there has been no prior notice of her retirement, nor any discussion of dismissal pay or counted leave periods, and via the omission of her code of instruction from the academic system, without any prior notice, which also resulted in serious challenges for her students, and their study-related affairs postponed, plus disruptions to the PhD and Masters dissertations in progress under her supervision.
On Nov. 28, 2022, a number of students at Shahid Beheshti Uni., openly protested to the suspension of four of their lecturers, Muhammad Ragheb, Negar Zeylani, Niloufar Razawi and Eslam Nazemi, and stated that if current circumstances persist, they would be prepared for boycotting their classes and final exams. Of course, later, certain sources disclosed that the suspension in question has been only exerted against the first two lecturers and the other two are excluded from it. At the same time, 20 lecturers at the same university, accompanied the protesting students in solidarity with their suspended colleagues. Ragheb, the assistant professor of Farsi Language and Lit., at Shahid Beheshti Uni., gave an account of his own dismissal on his Instagram explaining that “in protest to the [crackdown] situation in the streets and at the universities, I refused holding my class, and participated in the student demonstrations along with my other colleagues. I was dismissed with no formal notice, and my access to the university dashboard, email, and system denied. My monthly salary canceled, and apparently I am even required to return my Oct., 2022, salary as well.”
In the meanwhile, Tehran Uni., too, was not left unexposed to this purging procedure. Hussein Mosahebiyan, Tehran Uni. professor of philosophy, informed for the first time about his dismissal from the philosophy dept. on his Instagram saying: “After 16 years of presence in the Dept. of Philosophy and Lit., and holding a record of teaching in various groups, including philosophy, history, and Iranian studies of this dept., and with persistent follow-up of the present head of Lit. dept., for cancelling my three cases of extension, conversion, and reassignment, all together, the situation brought about was lack of any contractual enlistment and technically my dismissal.” The discharge of Dr. Reza Omidi, lecturer of Social Policy-Making and Development at Tehran Uni., also spurred a reaction by Iran Sociologists Association and they published a statement in solidarity with this dismissed lecturer. The professor of Sociology at Allameh Tabatabayi Uni., Morteza Mardiha, too, was among other lecturers academically banned in the course of “Zhina (Mahsa) Movement.”
Yet, the tsunami of academic purges does not remain confined to the previous cases and Mohsen Borhani, one of the lecturers of Law Dept., at Tehran Uni., whose dismissal found its way to media on Jan. 12, 2023, himself a former counselor at Supreme Court of Justice, was dismissed due to his criticisms of making such heavily consequential charges as “belligerence” (or “waging-war”) and “corruption on earth” against some protestors of this movement and those sentenced to execution by the judiciary system, and had reminded that the proceedings of their cases and their execution have not been fair.
This aside, as reported by Ham-Mihan, a reformist newspaper based in Iran, in certain cases, in the enlistment order of some lecturers, the phrase “official probationary” is printed. The dissident lecturers are faced with the dilemma of either going on “dismissal pay,” or apply for voluntary “retirement,” or inevitably bear their “discharge;” penalizing dissident lecturers in Iran’s academia is not limited to discharging them, or barring them from instruction. A lecturer, asked to remain anonymous, disclosed to “Didban-eh Iran” news agency that “sometimes, a prominent professor who is of opinions disagreeable to that of the dean or a part of the government, can remain at the level of an “assistant professor” for years, and for reasons not known, her “full professorship” is suspended indefinitely.
The academic authorities persistently relate these discharges, suspensions, or forced retirements to be academic insufficiency or students’ dissatisfaction with the teaching performance of the lecturers dismissed, or lack of a due class pertinent to the lecturer’s area of expertise, and reject any connection between such developments and the political activities or positions of these lecturers. Yet, a glance at the list of the lecturers dismissed, and identifying the names of political activists or pundits in various political parties, such as Sadegh Zibakalam, Seyyed Mahmud Alizadeh Tabatabayi, Muhammad Ali Bahmani, Muhammad Ghari Seyyed Fatemi, Hooriyeh Dehghan’Shad, and Seyyed Muhammad Dadgaran, can help find the vivid impact of political considerations and questions well-reflected in this eliminatory procedure.
