TEHRAN, Iran
Iran’s hard-line president urged students this week to push for a purge of liberal and secular university teachers, another sign of his determination to strengthen Islamic fundamentalism in the country.
With his call echoing the rhetoric of the nation’s 1979 Islamic revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears determined to remake Iran by reviving the fundamentalist goals pursued under the republic’s late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Ahmadinejad’s call was not a surprise — since taking office a year ago, he has also moved to replace pragmatic veterans in the government and diplomatic corps with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.
Iran still has strong moderate factions but Ahmadinejad’s administration also has launched crackdowns on independent journalists, Web sites and bloggers.
Speaking to a group of students this week, Ahmadinejad called on them to pressure his administration to keep driving out moderate instructors, a process that began earlier this year.
Dozens of liberal university professors and teachers were sent into retirement this year after Ahmadinejad’s administration, sparking strong protests from students, named the first cleric to head Tehran University.
