Report: “Education targeted as threat to Islam”
Scotsman News reporter Michael Slackman:
— “As Iran’s universities prepare to start classes this month, there is a growing fear that the government will purge political and social science departments of professors and curriculums deemed ‘un-Islamic'”
— “The concerns have been stoked by speeches by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as 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.”
— “Khamenei said last 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 ‘promote secularism'”
— “For years, the study of subjects such as philosophy and sociology has been viewed suspiciously by Iranian conservatives. During the earliest days of the Islamic Revolution, the nation’s leaders closed universities and tried to sanitise curriculums to fit their Islamic revolutionary ideology. The efforts ultimately failed under the weight of more pragmatic forces eager to engage with Western economies, and a student population hungry for contemporary ideas and contact with the West.”
— “But in recent years, academics who attended conferences abroad, or took part in cultural exchange programmes, have often been vilified at home or viewed suspiciously. Some have been arrested on charges of trying to organise a soft revolution.”
— “The recent speeches by the country’s leaders suggest they may no longer be willing to live with such ambiguity after months of unsuccessfully trying to extinguish the political and social crisis set off by the election.”