TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian officials have canceled or downgraded major Shiite religious events during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, suggesting fear that the opposition might use them to stage protests.
A typically massive evening celebration scheduled for next weekend at the South Tehran mausoleum of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was canceled “due to problems,” the site’s public relations department said in a statement.
A traditional speech by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marking the end of Ramadan, meanwhile, was changed from a large venue to one that is much smaller, the Ettemaad newspaper, which is critical of the government, reported Sunday.
And in Qom, the nation’s center for religious education, several famous clerics who silently support the opposition were told they had been barred from speaking at an event Wednesday in the city’s most important shrine, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported.
Although there have been no mass demonstrations since July, the cancellations and venue changes show that Iranian leaders are still worried about protests by followers of the defeated presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.
Meanwhile, a hard-line deputy of Iran’s supreme leader announced steps to purge Iranian universities of Western influences.
Hamid Reza Ayatollahi, head of a government body that oversees universities, announced a plan to revise humanities curricula to bring it more in line with Islamic principles.
“Many of the syllabuses taught to students majoring in humanities are not in line with Iranian and Islamic culture, and therefore their revision is a must,” Ayatollahi said in a statement published by Iranian news agencies.
A committee has been established to “eliminate certain curricula and replace them with Islamic materials,” he said.
Critics derided the purge as another in a 30-year series of ill-fated attempts to impose the puritanical values of hard-liners who dominate political life on Iranian society.
The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
