Iran's Parliament Dismisses Science Minister for Supporting Pro-Western Voices

In a move that dealt a blow to moderate President Hassan Rouhani's liberalisation program, the Iranian Parliament voted Wednesday to dismiss the Minister of Science on charges of supporting pro-Western voices in universities.

During the open session, a total of 270 votes were cast; 145 MPs voted in favour of the impeachment motion to remove the Science, Research and Technology Minister, Reza Faraji-Dana, while 110 cast their votes against it and 15 did not vote at all, the Tehran Times reports. The Constitution states that an impeached Minister, in case he fails to get a vote of confidence from the Parliament, will be dismissed. 

The New York Times reports that the conservative lawmakers were not too happy with the minister favoring teachers who were considered to be pro-Western or who actively participated in opposition rallies after the highly-disputed 2009 election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected as the President. During the same poll, even though Rouhani was out of town, he expressed his support and also called Dana a "polite and knowledgeable minister".

Those who voted to dismiss the Science Minister gave the following reasons for their motion against him: "The cancellation of the scholarships of a number of Ph.D. students, the adoption of a new mechanism to appoint university chancellors, the failure to deal properly with illegal political activities at universities, and the appointment of a number of people who were involved in the unrest which occurred after the 2009 presidential election to key academic posts during the science minister's nine-month tenure."

However, Dana delivered a speech before the voting began and said that he was trying to act according to the Supreme Leader's guidelines so as to bring "vitality to universities".

The removal of Dana has been seen by the official media as the first major ousting from office of a government minister since Rouhani came to power after a massive victory in the 2013 elections, Reuters reports.