Iranian supply
November 22, 2023
Introducing the key revolutionary group purging Iranian college professors
Over the previous 12 months, universities throughout Iran have been on the forefront of the Women, Life and Freedom Revolution. Iranian college students led assaults towards the Islamic Republic and, consequently, confronted brutal repression by the hands of the regime’s repressive equipment, together with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) scholar militia, referred to as the Student Basij Organization. This is a widely known truth. (SBO). Less well-known, nevertheless, is the regime’s struggle towards college professors and tutorial workers by the Professors’ Basij Organization (PBO), a secretive para-academic militia.
At least 70 college professors have been suspended or fired in Iran because the peak of protests resulted in January, in response to official information backed by the federal government, though the precise determine is nearer to round 110. Thousands of scholars had been expelled and suspended nationwide throughout the interval following the protests.
The killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Zina Amini, who was killed by the so-called morality police for “violating” the necessary hijab rules, is unsurprising given the historical past of protests, however the killing of Iranian universities, that are I might make it one of many. A pillar of protest towards the clerical system.
While college students spearheaded anti-regime protests throughout campus, organizing rallies and sit-ins, college professors and school members initially shunned collaborating within the assault. However, their silence was quickly damaged as college students cried out their hypocrisy and begged to hitch the revolutionary motion. Students chanted, “Professors, professors, communicate up, do not be afraid,” and “Our professors are ashamed and settle for humiliation.” It did not take lengthy for a lot of lecturers throughout Iranian universities to espouse help for the Women, Life and Freedom Revolution.
Of course, this isn’t with out penalties. The regime’s repressive equipment waited till the surge of protests had ended with a view to totally retaliate towards opposing Iranian college students and lecturers.
The Islamic Republic makes use of quite a lot of establishments to suppress opposition throughout Iran’s universities, together with Halasat, a division of the Ministry of Information, and the Revolutionary Guards scholar Basij group, which was approved by the European Union in May. I’ve been silenced. Still, whereas Herasat and the SBO are centered totally on concentrating on college students, one other shadowy group, the PBO, which has to this point been ignored by the West, has been concerned within the crackdown and coercion of dissenting tutorial workers. We are actively engaged on silence.
Formed in early 2001, the PBO was established as one of many particular branches of the Basij, a civilian militia of the Revolutionary Guards, with the robust help of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. In a speech the identical 12 months, he stated: “I counsel you to develop the Basij professor group. Dear brothers and sisters, thank God, there are a lot of pious professors in our universities in the present day, so I want to introduce them and acknowledge them. , please undertake them in a single group.”
Structurally, the PBO operates as a subordinate department of the Revolutionary Guards, and its commander is at all times the Revolutionary Guards Commander, appointed by the Basij emir. Its top-down construction he might be divided into three layers. His PBO headquarters is comprised of commanders from the Revolutionary Guard Imam Hossein University in Tehran. PBO facilities exist at main universities in Iran and are made up of college workers, all of whom are lively Basij members. and PBO membership spreading to all different universities in Iran in response to regulation.
The PBO was initially created to prepare pro-regime professors throughout the nation, infiltrate all universities, and function the eyes and ears of the IRGC throughout campuses. The group has been considerably strengthened since 2005, when hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took workplace as president. Ahmadinejad, himself a PBO member, will pave the way in which for different members to serve in authorities, notably in Iran’s Ministry of Higher Education and all through different state bureaucracies. For instance, Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi and Kamran Danshijou served as Ahmadinejad’s increased schooling ministers within the first and second administrations, and Kamran Bagheri Rankarani, the minister of well being and medical schooling, had been each PBOs. was a member of.
When post-election protests referred to as the Green Movement erupted in 2009, the PBO stepped up its repression efforts. PBO members started to actively management and repress college students, most of whom opposed Ahmadinejad and deemed his “election” rigged. One scholar on the time recalled this expertise: “A Basij professor advised him to not attend class due to his help for the 2009 protests. I stated no. ”
The energy of the PBO, which flourished throughout the Ahmadinejad period, will decline between 2013 and 2021 beneath President Hassan Rouhani. In distinction, President Rouhani steadily eliminated PBO members from the state forms and away from college administration, primarily due to factionalism and private feuds with the Revolutionary Guards.
This present state of affairs can be utterly reversed if hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi is successfully appointed president in 2021. With Raisi’s appointment as president, the PBO’s actions accelerated to an unprecedented degree. The PBO supported Raisi’s presidential marketing campaign, and lots of of its members, just like the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, joined Raisi when he fashioned his authorities. For instance, Iran’s present Minister of Higher Education and Minister of Health and Medical Education are members of the PBO, as is Minister of Science, Technology and Research Ali Zolfigor, who has vowed to “make sure the Islamicization of universities on this regime.” PBO members who management the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Medical Education are appointed as college presidents and deans.
For instance, Dr. Mohammad Mokimi, a member of the PBO, was appointed rector of Tehran University. As a outcome, Mr. Mokimi appointed a PBO member as dean of the college. Mohammad Reza Hosnai, head of the PBO Club of the University of Arts, has been appointed dean of the University of Arts of Tehran. Similarly, Abdulreza Saif, head of Tehran University’s PBO, is at the moment the dean of the college’s Faculty of Literature and Humanities.
But what precisely is predicted of PBO members? The PBO’s repressive actions might be broadly labeled into three classes: The first considerations conducting surveillance of professors and college students to establish dissenting voices. This was witnessed in giant numbers throughout the Women, Life and Freedom protests.
According to college students we interviewed at Alameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, professors on the PBO do quite a lot of work to establish all absentees who’re later suspended or unable to attend courses. He stated he deliberately gave a college lecture on the day and time the protest was deliberate. PBO members additionally acted as unofficial brokers of the so-called “morality police.”
Finally, in parallel with these actions, PBO members, like different Basij branches, are ready to make use of their place to radicalize, recruit, and mobilize college students and tutorial workers into the regime’s repressive equipment. It is predicted.
Of course, PBO members are provided profitable incentives as a reward for his or her service. In addition to early entry to senior college positions, Basji University professors additionally obtain precedence entry to state-funded scholarships to check overseas, notably at prestigious universities in Europe and the United States. Beneficiaries of such scholarships are anticipated to reap the benefits of early admission to Western universities to infiltrate and infiltrate Western tutorial establishments on behalf of the regime. Such incentives are on the identical time coupled with compelled ideological indoctrination of all her PBO members, making certain that they’re actually dedicated to the regime’s ideological trigger and never merely materially motivated. . This official indoctrination program, for instance, entitled “Professor Guardianship Plan,” is overseen by the son of the late Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, the ideological godfather of the Revolutionary Guards.
The PBO has quickly expanded its repression in current months, evading the eye of Western safety companies. On behalf of the Revolutionary Guards, universities throughout the nation are finishing up what Iranian and worldwide specialists are calling the regime’s “Third Cultural Revolution.” This large operation resulted within the suspension, expulsion, and even detention of Iranian professors and college students who criticized the regime or promoted “un-Islamic” beliefs.
As a part of this plan to “cleanse” the college, extremist Basij members with nearly no tutorial background or {qualifications} had been appointed as college lecturers. Among them is Saeed Hadyan, a Shiite Islamist admirer near Khamenei, who teaches graduate courses at Tehran University’s Faculty of Letters and Humanities and heads Tehran University’s PBO. Mr. Saif has been appointed because the dean.
For too lengthy, PBO has been ignored by Western nations. The PBO’s actions and operations are carefully tied to the IRGC and the Student Basij Organization, each of that are accredited our bodies, nevertheless it has not but been designated by the United States or Europe. As lengthy as this established order exists, the struggle towards Iranian professors and college students who help harmless democracy will proceed with out penalties.
Syed Golkar is an affiliate professor within the Department of Political Science on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a senior fellow in Middle East coverage on the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change within the United Kingdom.
References
Image: Iranian Basij (members of the Basij militia) college college students stand in entrance of portraits of the hanged Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini (left) and Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Khamenei in entrance of the primary gate of the Islamic Republic. Being photographed. Tehran University earlier than a rally to have fun the thirty third anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s loss of life, June 3, 2022 (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)