Kamran Daneshjoo

Kamran Daneshjoo (Persian: کامران دانشجو) (born 2 February 1956) is an Iranian university professor who was Minister of Science from 2009 to 2013.

Early life and Education

His web-site claims he has a Bs.C. degree from Queen Mary College (UK) and a Ms.C. degree from Imperial College, after which at some point he was expelled from the UK and restricted from entering Schengen due to a prior attempt at committing arson at the Penguin Book Store in London. He obtained his PhD by "The Viva examination held at Amirkabir University of technology, Iran June 1989".^[1] His claim to having earned a PhD has been disputed in Persian language blogs;^[2] previously, his web-page mentioned the Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology as the institute granting the Ph.D.^[3]

It was reported that when obtaining Majlis's vote of confidence, the parliament speaker Ali Larijani defended him, saying he obtained his certificate in Tehran after he was kicked out of a London college for "participating in a rally opposing" British writer Salman Rushdie.^[4]

It was also reported by the Mehr News Agency on 30 August 2009 that, following a probe into Daneshjoo's background during his ministerial nomination procedure, the chairman of the Education Committee of Iran's parliament, Ali Abbaspour-Tehrani announced: "He [Kamran Daneshjoo] does not have a PhD, neither from London's Imperial College nor from the Amirkabir University."

Political Career

Before being selected as Iran's minister of science, research, and technology, Daneshjoo was the head of the headquarters for the Iranian presidential election, 2009.^[5] He is accused by opposition leaders of being one of the engineers of election fraud.

Daneshjou is the co-author of an article published in the journal Engineering with Computers in 2009. In many places the text duplicates verbatim that of an earlier paper: "Ricochet of a tungsten heavy alloy long-rod projectile from deformable steel plates", published by South Korean scientists in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics in 2002.^[3]

Plagiarism

On 22 September 2009, Nature, the prominent British scientific journal, reported that "large chunks of text, figures, and tables in a 2009 paper co-authored by Kamran Daneshjou, Iran's science minister, are identical to those of a 2002 paper published by South Korean researchers".^[3] On 25 September 2009, Springer, the publisher that Daneshjou's paper, was submitted to, retracts paper by Iran's science minister.^[6] Similar plagiarism has been found in three other papers by Daneshjou.^[7] Iranian scientists said they intend to press for a plagiarism inquiry.^[8] Another paper for which he took credit has since been retracted by Engineering with Computers.^[9]

Gender segregation in universities

Daneshjou has also called for the segregation of university students based on gender in accordance with the "Islamic worldview".^[10]

Ideological cleansing of universities

Daneshjoo has stated that he intends to remove university professors and students who do not have a proven commitment to Islam and the Velayat-e faqih. He has also blamed much of the current post-election unrest in Iranian universities on "subversive" behavior by students and professors.^[11]

Sanctions

Daneshjoo has been on the sanction list of the European Union since December 2011 due to his alleged role in the Iran's missile development and nuclear program.^[12]

References

Source

• Iran Human Rights Documentation Center Violent Aftermath: The 2009 Election and Suppression of Dissent in Iran (February 2010), New Haven, Connecticut.