Academic Dismissed For Addressing Human Rights
Saba Vasefi, an academic and women’s rights activist, was dismissed from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran for discussing human rights in her Persian literature classes.
In Radio Farda’s Special Interview, Vasefi says during the previous semester, she was warned four times for “political analysis of literary texts.” The university authorities told her that she was familiarizing students with human rights through literature, Vasefi says.
Asked if her dismissal was related to her work on women’s rights or only because of the questions she posed in her classes, she says, “They’re all related. Through studying literature, we re-examined a history in which women have had no human identity; my duty as a teacher was to show such shortcomings.”
Former Diplomat Launches 'Green Embassies Campaign'
Former Iranian consul in Oslo Mohammad Reza Heydari, who resigned from his post in early January to protest the state crackdown on Iranian demonstrators, tells Radio Farda he has launched the “Green Embassies Campaign” to encourage the solidarity of Iranian diplomats with the Green Movement in Iran.
Heydari adds that the campaign aims to get Iranian diplomats to join the opposition movement.