Another University Professor Fired in Iran for Supporting Protesters

A professor in Tehran who expressed support for student protests says he has been sacked from his post at Allameh University amid an intensifying clampdown on critical voices in Iran. 

"I am Mahdi Khoei, a sociology professor at Allameh University who has never compromised his values and has been unwavering in his dedication to both students and the public. Despite seven years of devoted teaching, I have been handed a termination letter," he said in an Instagram post on August 17.

The announcement triggered condemnations from both faculty members and students. 

"We wholeheartedly stand by our teacher, Professor Mahdi Khoei, and offer him our unwavering support," students at Allameh University’s Faculty of Sociology said in a statement, adding that Khoei’s dismissal was part of a broader pattern of repression against dissenting voices. 

In recent months, the Iranian government has suspended or expelled dozens of professors and students for their political views, in what the student union councils of Iran said was part of a strategy to cleanse universities of activists.