According to a Sunday 28 of September, 2025, report by IRNA News Agency, Iranian universities and academic institutions have issued a unified condemnation of what they describe as the “assassination of knowledge and thought,” following the killing of Professor Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, president of Islamic Azad University. The universities claim that the assassination was carried out by Israel, marking what they call a deliberate attack on academia.
In a joint statement released Sunday, the academic centers called on “the awakened conscience of the world” to rally behind a new global campaign titled Protect Scientists, aimed at defending intellectuals and researchers against violence and political targeting.
“The global academic community today mourns an unprecedented tragedy. The state terrorism of the Zionist regime, in a brazen act of barbarism, has gone beyond targeting infrastructure and military figures and turned its guns directly toward ‘thought’ and ‘the management of science,’” the statement declared.
Describing Tehranchi as a “martyr scientist,” the institutions condemned his death as “a rare crime in contemporary history and a direct declaration of war against the sacred sanctuary of the university.”
The statement emphasized that Tehranchi’s efforts to promote scientific progress and educational reform had made him a target. “His only crime was turning a great university into a hub for ‘innovation, skill-building, and solving human problems,’” it read. His independence of thought, the universities said, was “intolerable for the enemies of freedom and progress.”
The academic community also criticized international bodies such as UNESCO for what they described as “deadly silence” and complicity through inaction. The joint statement argued that “silence in the face of this savagery is a betrayal of science and human dignity.”
In closing, the institutions urged scholars, students, and academic organizations around the globe to speak out against the attack and join the Protect Scientists campaign. They warned that targeting intellectuals will not stop the progress of science.
“By eliminating scientists, the enemies of humanity will never succeed in halting the advancement of science,” the statement concluded.
The assassination has sparked widespread outrage in Iran’s academic circles, highlighting the increasing vulnerability of educators and researchers amid geopolitical conflict. See, More, Here>>>>
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