The Ahmadinejad Star Chamber for dissidents

Sunday Telegraph:

University authorities in Iran have adopted a "star rating" system for politically-active students as part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's crackdown on dissent within the academic elite.

The diktat, under which regime critics are given between one and three stars according to the perceived threat they pose, was among the main catalysts for last week's unprecedented student demonstrations against Ahmadinejad in Teheran.

At the protests - the first public display of defiance against the president's hard-line clerical rule since he took office last year -students burned his picture and branded him a "fascist" who had no place in an institute of learning.

Under the vetting system, first enforced in the present academic term, some students deemed ideologically suspect have been banned outright from studying.

"Students who already had one star had to sign a letter saying they would not join in any political activities before they could enrol," said Ali Nikou Nesbati, 26, a member of Tahkin Vahdat, a student body involved in the protests.

"Students who had two stars had their enrolment delayed for months and had to sign a much more binding letter. Those with three stars - about 17 students in all - have been prevented from enrolling at all."

The star system has, however, become a badge of honour among those who have acquired them on their records. Students have likened it to the German Nazi-era practice of making Jews wear the Star of David, a comparison that acquired new relevance last week when Ahmadinejad aroused international disgust by hosting a conference in Teheran for people who deny the Holocaust.

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There is more.

It appears that the student protest for "the mad jab" was a twofer for the despots in charge of Iran. They got to use the students as props to show how "open" the regime is while at the same time identifying students to get their next star that can lead to their expulsion. A pretty cynical show for a guy who want s to create a holocaust and deny the original. He apparently learned has taken as a mentor the members of the former German regime. Hopefully he will meet the same end.

The NY Times appears to have missed the significance of the Ahmadinejad’s use of the students as a prop as well as the consequences to them.