Ayatollah Amid Zanjani, a radical Shiite cleric with a notorious record of human rights violations when he was a religious prosecutor in the 1980s, was installed as chancellor last Sunday. Zanjani, who was appointed by the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has no academic background.
Zanjanis inauguration ceremony turned into a fiasco as students abandoned classes and held a demonstration. Zanjanis turban was thrown off during the scuffles. One of the students detained after the demonstration has been charged with insulting the clergy.
