Science in Iran: A catalyst for corruption

6 Dec 2024 | Iran, News and features, Volume 53.03 Autumn 2024

Iran, a country that in its distant past played a significant role in the development of knowledge and laid the foundations upon which modern science now stands, has experienced a tremendous urge for scientific rebirth over the past century.

But Iranian scientists are facing a government that considers itself the manifestation of God’s will on Earth, that has no qualms about intimidation and oppression, and whose daily rhetoric revolves around the word “enemy”.

It wants its ideological model to be seen as the path to success and is terrified of criticism, quickly making everything from nuclear energy and the space industry to vaccination and public medical services into a security issue.

It may be no surprise that Iran’s nuclear programme is now securitised, and that the Supreme National Security Council demands silence or compliance from science and media institutions. The tool of national security has now become a pressure point in Iran for any thought that does not align with the government’s ideology.

I have covered science and technology news in Iran for more than 10 years. Although I’ve dealt with issues that were considered red lines on multiple occasions, the only time my colleagues and I received a death threat was when I published a story about the importance of blood transfusion and rejected the unscientific and dangerous practice of hijamat (cupping therapy – a form of Islamic traditional medicine). But that incident is in no way comparable to the deadly consequences of censorship that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.

When the pandemic was claiming lives, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, banned the entry of vaccines from the USA and the UK into Iran. This was a decision that cost many lives.

The reaction of domestic media to this decision was silence under censorship, and when foreign media reacted they were accused of being agents of the enemy.

“You won’t find even one media outlet asking what the consequences of the leader’s decision were in this regard,” said one doctor and medical science activist, who asked to remain anonymous.

“Even Dr [Masoud] Pezeshkian, who is himself a physician, at that time – before his presidential election – when asked about the vaccine, said we didn’t want to import vaccines from certain countries based on our policy, although he was surely aware of the effects of this decision.”

While Iranian-made vaccines had not yet received their controversial approval, and parts of the Food and Drug Agency in the Ministry of Health were trying to enforce minimal oversight, the Ministry of Intelligence accused three scientists and managers of co-operating with the enemy and obstructing the approval of the vaccine.

It requested that the judiciary prosecute them.

Correspondence showing this was revealed only in a set of documents published by a hacker group called Ali’s Justice after it gained access to Iran’s judiciary.

In this correspondence, it was mentioned that, due to the matter’s sensitivity, the case should be investigated without informing the public or arresting the individuals. A few days later, the Barakat vaccine was approved in Iran.

Pressuring individuals active in scientific fields has a long history in Iran.

After the protests following the 2009 presidential election results, known as the Green Movement, several professors who supported them were expelled from universities. There were similar incidents after the events of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

In late January 2018, the intelligence agency of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested several environmental activists involved in a project to save the endangered Asiatic cheetah. The Tehran prosecutor accused them of espionage.

But a panel including ministers of justice and lawyers announced that they had found no evidence of espionage. Even the Ministry of Intelligence stated that it had no evidence to support the charges.

One of those arrested was conservationist Kavous Seyed-Emami, a Canadian citizen. Two weeks after his arrest, prison authorities informed his family that he had killed himself.

However, his family believe that his death was due to physical injuries resulting from torture in prison, and signs of beating were visible on his body.

Another detainee was forced to confess on state television, and others served their sentences in full. Finally, after enduring six years of imprisonment without any evidence of the reasons for their arrest, the remaining detainees were released in April as part of a pardon.

Blocking the flow of information

One of the methods researchers used during the pandemic to estimate the actual mortality rate from Covid-19 and expose the discrepancies in official statistics was to refer to the monthly birth and death statistics published by the National Organisation for Civil Registration.

Mahan Ghafari, a virology specialist at the University of Oxford who followed this issue, told Index how, after the reports were published, the organisation restricted and stopped publishing this data. Eventually, access to the organisation’s website was blocked for those outside Iran.

Another part of this pressure involves halting international collaborations. Ghafari recalls how, after a paper was published with an Israeli co-author, the Iranian regime accused all the scientific findings of being a plan against Iran by Israel.

Scientists working on Iran-related issues from outside the country face the risk of harassment. Even their travel to Iran and visiting their families is affected, so many prefer to stay silent.

In the wave of arrests of environmental activists, Kaveh Madani, who at the time was the deputy for education and research at the Department of Environment, was also arrested. He repeatedly spoke about security interrogations and the review of his communications by security agencies.

Although the official reason for his arrest was not announced, his explicit warnings about Iran’s water bankruptcy and the impending water crisis were widely considered to be a driving factor.

Madani later left Iran and was appointed as the director of the UN think-tank on water.

The story of Madani’s arrest is often cited as a cautionary tale. When globally recognised Iranian experts return to help improve the situation in Iran, they not only have to battle the complex bureaucracy of the political structure but also face unaccountable political entities. They risk interrogation, arrest, imprisonment and even death. This situation only exacerbates the self-censorship among Iranian scientists living abroad.

An Iranian-American researcher currently working in cosmology, who asked not to be named, told Index about another aspect of structural censorship and the pressures it creates.

“I would love to do things alongside my professional work that bring science into people’s homes – lectures, talks with the media, sharing my experiences. However, due to the fear of being targeted by political groups inside the country and the limitation on my ability to travel to Iran, I have completely stopped these activities. This fear halted great opportunities that could have been used to promote science and help Iran’s scientific development,” they said.

They also pointed out how Iranian scientists outside the country faced dual pressures. While the security environment and censorship prevent them from criticising a scientific project in Iran, they are deprived of many research opportunities elsewhere because of their Iranian background.

Their funding is sometimes denied if they have dual nationality, and they face more difficulties in advancing in the scientific community of their host country.

Powerful but chaotic censorship

When protests over the killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini sparked the flames of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, students and academic institutions were not spared from the assault. Not only were students attacked and suppressed, professors who raised their voices in support of them were also repressed.

Encieh Erfani, an assistant professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences in Iran, resigned in 2022 in protest against the regime’s treatment of students and is now continuing her scientific activities outside the country. She told Index about the wider issues.

“The problem here is that the censorship structure has red lines that you know exist and, from experience, you know you should not even come close to them,” she said.

What Erfani points to is one of the most significant reasons for the intensification of self-censorship in Iran. The fear of unknowingly crossing red lines leads to conservatism in the scientific community – a community that can grow only by pushing existing boundaries.

Kiarash Aramesh, director of the Pennsylvania Western University’s James F Drane Bioethics Institute, which focuses on biomedical sciences and the humane treatment of patients, agrees. He recently published a book on pseudoscience in medicine in Iran.

“As long as you don’t oppose the principles of Islamic traditional medicine, you can publish your articles. But the scientific institution in Iran is so influenced by politics that even within the scientific community there will be opposition to you,” he said.

Beyond slowing down the process of scientific development, censorship in Iran is creating a corrupt environment from which anti-scientific and pseudoscientific trends emerge and thrive.

“When there is corruption in society, there is also corruption within the scientific community. Contrary to popular belief that scientists are always pure and honest people, they, too, are subject to this corruption. Under the conditions of a totalitarian regime, in the absence of transparency and freedom of criticism, even scientists may engage in unethical behaviours and participate in corruption for personal gain. Just as we have seen in history, this story repeats itself,” Erfani said.

Censorship in science in Iran is a many-faced monster that, on the one hand, forces scientists within the country into conservatism and, on the other hand, tries to ideologise the structure of science through threats and intimidation.

It has discouraged and prevented many Iranian scientists abroad from participating in scientific discourse and contributing to its development in Iran. It restricts international collaboration between Iranian and non-Iranian scientists and it creates a dark space for the growth of corruption – a situation exacerbated by the repression and threats against science media and free scientific journalism.