Purge of Iranian Universities Is Feared
As Iran’s universities prepare to start classes this month, there is growing concern within the academic community that the government will purge political and social science departments of professors and curriculums deemed “un-Islamic,” according to academics and political analysts inside and outside Iran.
The fears have been stoked by speeches by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as by confessions of political prisoners, that suggest that the study of secular topics and ideas has made universities incubators for the political unrest unleashed after the disputed presidential election in June…
Ayatollah Khamenei said this week that the study of social sciences “promotes doubts and uncertainty.” He urged “ardent defenders of Islam” to review the human sciences that are taught in Iran’s universities and that he said “promote secularism,” according to Iranian news services.
So Iranian conservatives are threatening to do what many Christian conservatives in the US wish they themselves could: expunge the “insidious” ideas and amputate the education system.
The idea that this can even be a crime is justly outrageous - another unsettling example of dogma with power.
posted on September 2, 2009report this as inappropriate
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