04/19/2011
GVF — Students at a university in Tehran have overshadowed a planned lecture by Ahmadinejad’s former Culture Minister by chanting “Death to the dictator,” according to a report.
According to opposition website Daneshjoo News, student at Tehran’s Azad University (north branch) disrupted a planned speech by Hossein Saffar-Harandi, a former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Ahmadinejad’s cabinet.
The talk, which had been organised by the university’s Basij unit, was disrupted when a student asked Saffar-Harandi a question regarding the occurrence of fraud in Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election. The question was then followed by chants of “Death to the dictator” in protest against the official’s presence on campus.
This is not the first time that Saffar-Harandi has been jeered by student while delivering a lecture at an Iranian university. In November 2009, students at Tehran’s Khaje Nasir University of Technology showed their opposition towards the former minister by tossing shoes at him. Similar incidents have also been reported in the Universities of Qazvin and Tabriz.
Saffar-Harandi is currently an advisor on cultural affairs in Iran’s elite fighting force, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).