While Iran’s regime is fast busy purging universities of critics and dissidents, on August 4, news broke about Saeed Haddadian, a regime eulogizer, being appointed as a university professor.
Haddadian is a former commander of the Meqdad Basij base in west Tehran, whose operatives shot and killed unarmed protesters during the 2009 uprising.
On August 29, Iran Dideban website wrote, “After the government, the Majlis (parliament), the radio and television, now the university is in line to be purified. Every day the names of professors are published as suspended or fired, who are among the assets of the country and the prestige of the university.”
On August 20, the state-run Hammihan newspaper, after revealing Raisi’s behind-the-scenes efforts to fire professors and hire his ‘aligned team’ in the university, wrote: “A document has been published that shows that Raisi’s government is secretly recruiting 15,000 aligned faculty members on a quota basis, immediately and outside the existing scientific framework of universities.”
The meaning of “aligned” is agreeing with repressive policies on the one hand, and having unauthentic and baseless academic certificates on the other.
On August 29, Iran Dideban news outlet published a government expert’s response to a question regarding the institutions where these 15,000 faculty members acquired their university degrees: “Their degrees are from anonymous and greenhouse universities.”
He added, “In my opinion, all of them are mostly government employees who pocketed a lot of money and will become paid hands of foreign states in the future.”
Raisi’s “aligned team” caused such a scandal that Bijan Abdul Karimi, a government expert, said: “These people who have entered cultural institutions are ignorant and power-loving without human dignity.” (Source: Arman-e Sharq, September 3, 2023)
The occupation of the chair of literature by the regime eulogizer became so
outrageous that on September 5, the state-run Hammihan newspaper warned, “A day may come that we see a transformation that professors and eulogizer switch seats. Definitely, this event will result in strong reactions from different strata of the society.”
On September 4, Dideban Iran news outlet quoted a government expert describing the reason behind decision as being the society explosive conditions and the effective role of the university in the uprisings. He added, “As long as the main cause of dissatisfaction in the society has not been dealt with, the consequence of it will remain unsolved, unless universities be transformed into barracks in which a handful of commanders give orders and the soldiers obey them, something that contradicts to the nature of university.”
The “main cause” behind such a decision making is to confront with the burning flames of uprisings and calls for regime change. That is why the regime’s supreme leader was forced to appoint Raisi as president to implement the policy of contraction and “purification”, to arrest students, suspend them, threaten youth, and quell protests. But since this policy is not being carried out from a position of strength and stability, and the outcome will be contrary to the regime’s desires.
On September 3, the state-run Roydad 24 news outlet quoted Mohammad Reza Tajik, a regime expert, as saying, “The concentration and purification and internalization of power, which started a few years ago, is based on a great fear of survival. This is not the way to survive and increase power. This is a terrible path toward the terrible valleys of destruction.”