The Iranian Ministry of Science has fired the founder-director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS) in Zanjan and replaced him with a nuclear scientist known to have links with the pro-government Basij militia. The militia, widely seen as Iran’s moral police, has violently quelled student protests on campuses over the past year. According to Iranian press reports, the government has also replaced the leaders of at least 17 other academic and scientific institutions over the past month, including the chancellors of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, the University of Golestan in north Iran, and Arak University.
