August 30, 2010

Kamran Daneshjou, Iranian regime’s Minister of Science has threatened that universities which oppose the regime and its paramilitary Bassij forces must be destroyed.

According to the Mehr news agency on Sunday, Kamran Daneshjou added that the role of universities is to “train cadres for the establishment.”

“If the thieves from the East and the West succeed in controlling the university atmosphere [in Iran], they will then succeed in turning it to the liberal democracy of their liking instead of an Islamic university. They will define progress and growth and the criteria and values of the university on the basis of their own desires.”

Daneshjou said universities that ridicule the culture of the regime’s suppressive paramilitary Bassij Force, those which reject the regime’s religious claims, or campuses where clerics do not dare to enter would be better off not existing at all. “The Iranian people, students, employees and instructors will demolish such a university.”

Daneshjou is a close aide to the mullahs’ President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was Ahmadinejad’s campaign manager during the sham presidential elections in 2009. As the mullahs’ Minister of Science, he has repeatedly called for changing the status quo in the country’s campuses, where protests against the clerical regime continue to grow. During their anti-regime demonstrations, university students chant, “Get lost Bassiji,” in reference to the highly disliked members of the suppressive organ.

Several weeks ago, Daneshjou remarked that being committed to the principle of absolute clerical rule should be a pre-condition for hiring professors. Addressing “Bassiji professors” of Hamedan University, he had said, “We want to hire professors that believe in the principle of absolute clerical rule.”

He added in the same speech that, “One of the fundamental problems of our universities is that they have been defined by western standards. In order to solve this problem, one must dispense with such an atmosphere and create a new one.”

In February, Daneshjou had warned students and professors not in line with the Iranian regime’s policies will be expelled.

Recently, Ahmadinejad’s deputy for Management and Human Capital Development, Lotfollah Forouzandeh, had said that review committees should be formed to identify those who “cause instability” in campuses.

A large number of professors have been expelled or forced to resign in recent months. The pace of changing the landscape of Iran’s campuses increased rapidly during the post-June 2009 nationwide uprising which rattled the regime.

The mullahs’ Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has also expressed worries about the situation in universities and persisting protests, calling on regime officials to move quickly to suppress dissent on campuses.

The mullahs’ Minister of Science said in his most recent remarks that Khamenei “has said that universities are a haven for the enemy’s plots. … So, our teachers have a duty with regards to His Excellency’s warnings.” He also criticized current university programs.

For his part, Ahmadinejad has claimed that “our education system has been influenced by secular thought and beliefs of the arrogant powers.” He also threatened dissident students, saying, “Our students must cry out against liberal and liberal economic ideas.”