Dismissed Iranian university professors ask President Pezeshkian to facilitate their return

The 12 signatories of the letter have asked President Pezeshkian to clearly express his position on expelling the university professors, whose number is said to amount to dozens.

The letter comes days after Ali Sharifi-Zarchi, a Bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence professor at Sharif University of Technology was re-invited to pursue his academic career after a period of suspension for his critical political views.

The letter reads, “We, a group of expelled professors, want a clear statement and decisive move in this regard, to clarify whether there is a real determination at work or if only a handful of professors are going to return, so the matter would be used for propaganda.”

They argued, “What has unjustly happened to us is the product of a non-scientific and non-transparent mechanism of assessing general qualifications, inquisition, suppression of free thinking and intolerance to critical thinking.”

They blamed the laws and regulations that have been passed in recent years by ‘non-academic authoritarian institutions’ for their dismissal, saying they have violated academic freedom in the country.

Moretaza Nemati, Hassan Bagherinia, Abolfazl Shayan, Behrouz Chaman Ara, Ameneh A’li, Seyyed Javad Emami, Hamideh Sadat Khademi, Ahmad Rahimi, Abolghassem Rahimi, Zahra Khoshk Jan, Mohammad Soltani Ranani, Mahshid Gohari Kakhaki are the signatories of the letter.