City boy

The head of the ILNA (”Iranian Labour News Agency”) Masoud Heidari resigned yesterday after pressure from the Islamic Republic.

Since Ahmadinejad came in to power, there has been a lot of pressure on this news agency because of their coverage of the politically active students who are now widely referred to as “Starred Students” (if they get 3 stars, they get permanently banned from the university).

The pressures in the Islamic Republic government came from the Ministry of Science office who were very uncomfortable about the wide spread and up to date information about the crackdowns on the Iranian students reported by this popular news agency, to a point where they threatened to filter the agency’s website.

Amir Kabir University ISA student activist body has blamed the Ministry of Science directly for ordering harassment and arrests of active students. Since Ahmadinejad came in to powerful the MOS has become very radicalised and has worked closely with number of universities such as Amir Kabir and Tehran University which are both known as very politically active grounds for students. Ahmadinejad changed both university’s presidents when he came in to power last year through forced resignation of the old chairs, as part of what has become known as the Islamic Republic’s Second Cultural Revolution.