Iranian Science Minister spurns "secular" professors

Iranian Minister of Science and Technology, Kamran Daneshjou

Iranian Minister of Science and Technology, Kamran Daneshjou announced today that the country’s universities have no need for “secular” professors and educators who do not subscribe to the Islamic Worldview have no place in Iran’s universities.

He also told Fars news agency that acting in partisanship is “poisonous for the universities and treason against higher education.”

The universities have been a repeated target of government crackdown against election protesters in the past eight months. Many students have been arrested or barred from continuing their education, and scores of professors have been expelled or forced into retirement.

In the early days of protests against the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei especially pointed a finger at the universities and especially the humanities departments for their provocation of dissent and called for a review of staff and the curricula in these areas to reaffirm Islamic values and worldview.