Well, this is quite moderate. Let’s purge all of the Universities from divergent opinions. Of course at this very moment the former President of Iran is exercising his right of free speech at Harvard. Go figure.
**Iran’s President Calls for Purge at Universities **
By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, Sept. 5— President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran called today for a purge of liberal and secular professors from the country’s universities, IRNA news agency reported.
“Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present at universities,” he said to a group of young conservatives on the occasion of Youth Day, according to the news agency.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said the work to replace secular professors has started but “bringing change is very difficult.”
“Our educational system has been affected by 150 years of secular thought and has raised thousands of people who hold Ph.D.’s,” he said.
“Changing this system is not easy and we have to do it together,” he added.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s comments today appeared to be in line with a steady crackdown on social and political freedom that began after his election last year.
The police have waged a massive crackdown on satellite dishes, for example. Some 110,000 illegal dishes have been confiscated in the past five months, one senior official, Ahmad Roozbehani, was quoted by the press as saying. Opposition channels that broadcast mostly out of the United States have a large audience in Iran.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s call for purging secular professors from universities is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution of 1980-87, during which many liberal and western professors were fired or brought in line with the Islamic revolution’s views. The decisions were carried out by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, which is now headed by Mr. Ahmadinejad.
His call came amid increasing international pressure on Iran to stop enriching uranium. Iran has insisted on its right to enrich uranium and has said it will face punishment and sanctions but will not give up the program.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, is expected to meet the European Union’s head of foreign policy, Javier Solana, on Wednesday in Vienna, the ISNA student news agency reported today. The five members of the United Nations Security Council, France, Britain, United States, China and Russia, plus Germany, have said they might impose economic sanctions if Iran continues to defy the international demand.
Analysts in Tehran believe the increasing pressure at home is a result of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s failure to deliver his elections campaigns.
“He had promised to improve the economy and bring more equality but he has not been able to materialize any of those pledges,” said Abbas Abdi, a political analyst in Tehran.
“He has failed to solve the economic problem or end Iran’s nuclear case,’’ Mr. Abdi said, adding, “He is bringing up other issues now to distract people from those failures.’’
In a famous interview on state television during his campaign over a year ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad said his opponents falsely accused of him of radicalism. He said cracking down on social freedoms was not on his agenda and he only wanted to bring what he called “social justice.”
However, last month, a government spokesman, Gholamhossein Elham, in a letter to the judiciary, called for a clampdown on local media that he said “spread lies” against the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad, newspapers reported.
Newspapers had criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies and his inability to curb mismanagement.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said today that heads of universities were politicized in the past and his government has tried to change that.
For the first time since the 1979 revolution, Mr. Ahmadinejad appointed a cleric to head the Tehran University, the largest university in the country. His appointment sparked several days of protest at the university.
This summer close to 10 popular professors in humanities who were critical of the regime were retired.
A prominent Iranian-Canadian philosopher, Ramin Jahanbegloo, was released last week after four months in jail on charges of contacts with foreigners and espionage. His arrest was seen as part of an effort to intimidate secular intellectuals and force them into silence.
A prominent student leader, Ali Akbar Moussavi Khoini, has been jailed for two months. Student activists said 24 of their pro-democracy associations around the country have been suspended from work since Mr. Ahmadinejad took office and 10 students have been expelled from universities.
“In Mr. Ahmadinejad’s view the university is divided into two groups: those who are with us and those who are not with us,” said Abdullah Momeni, a student leader in Tehran.
“Those who are not with us are those who criticize the government, and the secular professors also fall in that category,” he said.
“They want to marginalize critics and students’ pro-democracy movement,” he added.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/world/middleeast/05cnd-iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
