Last updated: September 2007
Iran forces academic travel restrictions

Amidst fears that they will be recruited as western spies lecturers in Iran are being forced to inform authorities of all foreign trips in advance.

As well as academic trips the restriction with extend to pilgrimages and holidays. The move follows accusations from Iranian officials that the west is trying to exploit academics for espionage purposes.

This is the latest in a series of actions to put academics under the spot-light after the country’s Islamic rulers identified them as a potential ‘fifth column’ in alleged US-plans to instigate ‘soft revolution’ in Iran. The new rule tightens existing regulations that require scholars to notify security services before embarking on any foreign trips funded by their universities. Last year Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urged fundamentalist students to demand the sacking of liberal or pro-western lecturers and in May academics were warned that they would be under suspicion if they had contact with foreigners or traveled abroad for conferences.

These warnings have seen fewer contracts with the outside world, scholars said. One lecturer told the Guardian, “In the light of how things are developing, many people just aren’t attending seminars abroad any more. There is just too much risk involved. Foreign academics are no longer coming to Iran either. It’s more difficult for students of Iranian studies to get visas to come, either as part of their courses or when applying for conferences.”

Threats have also been extended to students. Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ezhei, Iran’s intelligence minister said that any students making contact with US and other foreigners would be ‘confronted’.

“We will confront those who are currently studying in universities under the guise of being students and have contact with foreigners and White House statesmen,” he said.

“They will be confronted because we believe they are not university students but are seeking to destroy the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

In recent months several student activists have been arrested.