Iranian Regime Banning Protestors From Their Schools, Derailing Careers
These Iranian students are really putting it on the line for their beliefs, even risking their own futures:
Behind the drama unfolding in the streets of Iran, the regime is quietly clamping down on some of the nation's best students by derailing their academic and professional careers.
On Wednesday, progovernment militia attacked and beat students at a school in northeastern Iran. Since last Sunday's massive protests nationwide, dozens of university students have been arrested as part of an aggressive policy against what are known as Iran's "star students."
In most places, being a star means ranking top of the class, but in Iran it means your name appears on a list of students considered a threat by the intelligence ministry. It also means a partial or complete ban from education.
The term comes from the fact that some students have learned of their status by seeing stars printed next to their names on test results.
Mehrnoush Karimi, a 24-year-old law-school hopeful, found out in August that she was starred. She ranked 55 on this year's national entrance exam for law schools, out of more than 70,000 test-takers. That score should have guaranteed her a seat at the school of her choice. Instead, the government told her she wouldn't be attending law school due to her "star" status.
Ms. Karimi says she thinks she got starred because she volunteered in the presidential campaign of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi last spring. She also participated in several antigovernment "Green Movement" protests that are convulsing Iran.
"They tell me, 'You are not allowed to study or work in this country any more.' Why? Because I voted for Mousavi and wore a green scarf?" says Ms.Karimi in a phone interview from the city of Isfahan, where she lives.
More than 1,000 graduate students have been blocked from higher education since the practice began in 2006, according to statements by Mostafa Moin, a former education minister, in official media in September.
Star treatment is reserved for graduate students, although undergrads also face suspension for political activity, according to student-rights activists. Several hundred undergrads have been suspended for as many as four semesters, according to student activists and human-rights groups in Iran. Under Iran's higher-education law, students are dismissed from school if they miss four terms.
.... if I believe that the right government/mindset would do that kind of thing in America?
IN A FRACKIN' HEARTBEAT.
Free-speech zones? Loyalty oaths? Ideological purity platforms? Sound familiar?
...eerily familiar... Repugliban! No! Republiran! (re-pub-lie-ran).
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
The tyrants don't need no edge-a-ma-cate-ed populace to keep order.
Republicans are the same everywhere.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Any chance that Iran would trade their "Star Students" for the Tea Baggers? I see that as a fair exchange, free thinkers that aren't wanted by one country for talking-point regurgitaters that aren't wanted in another...
"I could give a flying crap about the political process.... We're an entertainment company."
- Glenn Beck - Forbes interview; April 26, 2010
maybe something can be arranged! everyone would be happier with the situation i'm sure.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
the repugs would be happy to be traded,
then they could shot their guns at any
and everyone they want......
Don't think Iran is the only country where you can get yourself blacklisted for your political views. Remember the McCarthy era right here in the good old USA?
Put it this way: Today, if you work for most companies, don't talk political. If anybody asks, you're a libertarian. And never let ANYBODY at work know your online identity.
the teabaggers are the new mccarthys
I can't find any story links, but I saw on the BBC that Russia just cracked down on some protesters, hauling away some, many elderly.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The 'break-up' of the Soviet Union was just a red herring. Designed to lull the west and their population into a false sense of security, also to revitalize their economy which had basically crashed. The old communists are still running things. They're goal hasn't changed since the days of the Cold War and also the Czars, to control as much of Europe as possible. Sorry, I know it's off-topic but couldn't resist.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
It's interesting how Iran's educational system is now self-defeating. "Study hard kids and get a good a future. But not too hard! Or you won't get a future at all!"
Policies of benign neglect like "No Child Left Brainless" under Dumbya?
When schools can no longer teach critical reasoning and basically crank out a workforce suited to blue-collar jobs and burger-flipping, it's not just because the system is broken ... it's because a dumbed-down populace cannot challenge the rule of the privileged and wealthy.
:(
the current protests in iran are minor...
they are headed for a major civil war..
the bastard in charge now is f#cking moron
and sounds a lot like bush/cheney
I wonder if our Governments' black-ops has started to arm the opposition yet? I would imagine the population does not have any of their own to speak of.
Government + the Federal Reserve = organized crime
{Deleted. Off Topic. Save it for an open thread.SiteMonitor}
The Time magazine with Mosedeq on the cover still haunts my memory.
http://shirin.mit.edu/wordpress/wp-content/up...
... the more typical (and effective) tradition in the U.S. (until the emergence of neoconservative leadership) is to co-opt the best minds of each generation by affording them special privilege and access. The system endeavors to alter the personal trajectories of the gifted, thereby eventually making their interests align with the interests of the entrenched power.
When entrenched power chooses to cut off opportunity for the best and brightest young minds then standing in opposition, they help to create a more intelligent, motivated, and effective permanent opposition. At the same time, the opportunities earned by the "best and brightest" are instead handed to less gifted and less deserving students, simply because they are more inclined to "obey". The end result will be a less intelligent, more corrupt political class, leading to a society that rots from the head - not unlike the situation in the U.S., unfortunately.
The end result will be a less intelligent, more corrupt political class, leading to a society that rots from the head - not unlike the situation in the U.S., unfortunately.
so the Iranian regime takes nearly graduating students about to enter the workplace, and instead of ignoring their young political exuberances and letting them go unmolested into the mind numbing daily grind of raising the country's gdp they choose the option of forcing them into regime hating radicals for the rest of their lives. smart move there skippys.
With our draconian drug laws. Drug conviction no pell grant hence the poor are unduly sentenced to life working for minimum wage.
Take away someone's reason to live and you give them a reason to die.
This will only speed the inevitable downfall of the government. Treating the minds of the country like garbage is going to create enemies from within.
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