Iran appoints cleric to head Tehran University

Iran Focus: a pro-MEK website

Iran’s conservative government appointed a senior cleric with no academic experience as the head of Tehran University, a state-run news agency reported on Saturday.

The inauguration of Ayatollah Amid Zanjani is set to take place on campus during a ceremony on Sunday.

During the early days of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Zanjani, an ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, headed the komiteh in Tehran’s eastern Jaleh and Farah-Abad districts. The Komitehs were local police stations that also served as prosecution chambers. They achieved much notoriety as the power base of radical Islamist vigilantes who imposed rigorous religious laws on the population. READ MORE

Under new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s social institutions such as school, universities, and hospitals have been experiencing renewed political and social crackdown.