Iran Watch: Iran President Ahmadinejad Calls for PURGE of Liberal and Secular University Teachers

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arrives at his office in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday Sept. 5, 2006. Iran’s hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday called for an anti-liberal campaign in universities, another step back to 1980s-style radicalism, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

AP: Iranian president wants to purge profs

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

“Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Ahmadinejad complained that reforms in the country’s universities were difficult to accomplish and that the educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 150 years. But, he added: “Such a change has begun.”

The president, in his role as head of the country’s Council of Cultural Revolution, does have the authority to make such changes. But his comments Tuesday seemed designed more to encourage hard-line students to begin a pressure campaign on their own, thus forcing universities to oust the teachers.

Iran retired dozens of liberal university professors and teachers earlier this year. And last November, Ahmadinejad’s administration for the first time named a cleric to head the country’s oldest institution of higher education, Tehran University, despite protests by students.

And if the Mullahs wish to assure their grip as a THEOCRACY why not stifle dissent at the universities where reform movements may grow from the free discourse of ideas.

Yet, Harvard is entertaining Mohammad Khatami – the propagandist for the Mullahs.

Unbelievable….

Flap wonders if the academic freedom, but politically correct crowd at Harvard University will confront Khatami and the Iranian Mullahs on this PURGE?

Cox & Forkum on Mohammad Khatemi

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