The so-called ‘moderate’ and ‘reformist’ president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, elected in a sham poll earlier this month, is presiding over an ideological purge of teachers and university professors that has echoes of the darkest days of Stalin’s Soviet Union. More than 20,000 school principals have been removed from their posts in a punitive shake-up, according to reports in the state-run newspaper Etemad. Apparently, the move is part of a broader strategy to eliminate dissent and enforce loyalty within the country’s educational system. The teachers targeted are believed to have been involved in widespread protests that broke out in schools and colleges across Iran, during the nationwide uprising in 2022/23, triggered by the death in custody of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. Teachers and students took to the streets in towns and cities across Iran, voicing their dissent with the theocratic regime and calling for the mullahs’ overthrow. In a brutal crackdown, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the paramilitary Basij, killed more than 750 demonstrators and arrested over 30,000, many of whom have subsequently been tortured and executed.

The backlash has not been limited to school principals. The clerical regime has also targeted university professors. 32,000 associate professors have been dismissed and replaced by first and second-semester doctoral students, deemed to be loyal propagators of the mullahs’ repressive ideology, specially trained for their new roles in hastily convened 40-hour courses. President Pezeshkian is following the example of his hard-line predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, the ‘Butcher of Tehran’, killed in a helicopter crash in May. Raisi began a purge of university professors early in his presidency, in a bid to “purify” universities by removing those who failed to show unwavering loyalty to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic regime’s fundamentalist principles. Those professional teachers and professors summarily fired from their jobs now face bleak employment prospects in Iran’s collapsing economy. Already many have fled abroad, accelerating a brain drain that has caused a sharp deterioration in Iranian education, with inevitable impacts on many sectors. Of course, confronted with news of the educational purge, Iran’s Education Minister Reza Morad Sahraee, denied it was happening and said the turnover was a routine annual occurrence.

Masoud Pezeshkian has been hailed by many western politicians and journalists as a reformist, who could herald a brighter future for Iran’s beleaguered 85 million population. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He has repeatedly confirmed that he will stick rigidly to the policy of the Supreme Leader. Indeed, during his election campaign he was booed by students after he made flattering comments about the 85-year-old Khamenei. He angrily responded by saying: “I accept the leadership; I am completely devoted to him… You have no right to insult someone I believe in. You have no right to disrespect someone I believe in.” When asked if he had any red lines in choosing his colleagues in government, Pezeshkian confirmed that: “The red line is very clear; anyone who does not align with the general policies of the Supreme Leader and does not want to implement those policies is a red line.” The newly elected president has made it clear that he also intends to pursue the hard-line strategies of his predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi.

The latest purge of academia in Iran has served to highlight the mullahs’ fear that a further nationwide insurrection, fuelled by intellectual independence, could lead to their overthrow. The vast majority who took to the streets in the 2022/23 uprising were rebellious students and young people, often led by women, who hate the misogynist mullahs and deeply object to the repressive female dress codes and mandatory hijab. The protests became much more than a demand for a relaxation of women’s dress codes, however, erupting for the first time into furious political demands for regime change.

Primary and secondary school pupils who participated in the walkouts and protests in girls’ schools across Iran were subjected to revenge poison gas attacks, leaving many pupils seriously ill. The girls affected reported the smell of tangerine or rotten fish before falling ill. Hundreds were taken to hospital suffering from respiratory problems, nausea, dizziness and fatigue. Several girls died. Gas attacks were reported in Qom, Isfahan, Tabriz, Urmia, Ilam, Shiraz and the capital, Tehran. The mullahs lamely tried to blame foreigners, or internal opponents of the regime.  Some politicians even accused emotionally charged adolescents with making false claims about the gas attacks. But it is clear that hard-line factions within the IRGC were behind the assaults, which they saw as a way of punishing the schoolgirls for joining the nationwide ’Women, Resistance, Freedom’ uprising.

The latest wave of dismissals underscores the mullahs’ desperation to maintain control over the educational sector, although the regime’s heavy-handed approach will only serve to deepen discontent and alienate the very individuals tasked with shaping the nation’s future. Only a week after Pezeshkian’s sham election as president, thousands took to the streets on Sunday 14 July to protest about collapsing welfare conditions and to demand regime change, convinced that the mullahs are incapable of reform. As prices and inflation skyrocket, the majority of the population now struggle to survive on income that has fallen below the international poverty line. Protesters denounced the incompetence of the government chanting: “Shout for your rights! We will only obtain our rights in the streets.” As the economic crisis deepens, the Iranian regime is facing mounting pressure from its citizens, who are demanding that their basic civil rights and needs be met. The continued protests across the country suggest that the regime’s grip on power is weakening, and that the people of Iran are increasingly willing to take to the streets to voice their discontent.

There is now growing concern that the academic purge will pave the way for ultra- hard-line conservatives, who lack the necessary qualifications, taking over all the universities in Iran. Reports are circulating that right-wing principlist professors, who ideologically support the Supreme Leader and the founding principles of the theocratic regime, have replaced those who have been dismissed, imposing their ideology on students. In an open letter, Mohsen Renani, professor of economics at the university of Isfahan, described the process as “the second cultural revolution”, and said it was “a coup by the security apparatus of the political system against science” and “the final shot to the brain of science”. As the purge of academia continues, Professor Renani’s days may be numbered.

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STRUAN STEVENSON

Struan Stevenson is the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change (CiC). He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.