Controversies of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
According to Iran Focus, soon after attending Elm-o Sanaat University in 1975 to study engineering, Ahmadinejad was caught up in the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The OSU leadership played a key role in the crackdown on dissident university professors and students during the Islamic Cultural Revolution of 1980.
After Ahmadinejad's election to presidency, in early July 2005, Pilz passed his documents about his claims to the Austrian Interior ministry, which "were then forwarded to the state prosecutor's office.
[6] Also notable among the deniers, is Ali Rabiee, the intelligence advisor to the reformist President Khatami, who stated "during the mentioned accident happened, I was present in action regions of northwest and western Iran, and at that time Mr. Ahmadinejad was only involved at the civil construction work in the governing offices of Maku and the province".
Hamid Reza Asefi, the spokesman of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that, "The charges are so self-evidently false they are not worthy of response.
As a reply, Karroubi resigned from all his political posts, including his positions as an adviser to the Supreme Leader and as a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, both of which he had been appointed to directly by Khamenei.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's rival in the second round, has also pointed to what he claims are "organized and unjust" interventions conducted by "guiding" the votes, and has supported Karroubi's complaint.
Some political groups, including the reformist party Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), allege that Ahmadinejad received illegal support and advertising activities from supervisors selected by the Guardian Council who should have remained nonpartisan according to the election law.
On 10 January 2006, Ahmadinejad declared that his government is following the "religious mission" initiated by Navvab Safavi, a Shi'a cleric who assassinated the historian and author Ahmad Kasravi in 1946 for "insulting Islam."
In 2001, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's ideological mentor, praised Safavi and encouraged Muslims in taking similar steps against the "enemies of Islam.
[17] In September 2009, in response to the international outrage, Ahmadinejad was reported to say that the angering of "professional man-slayers is a source of pride for us and will not stand in our way.
[19] Popular forms of Western music (hip-hop, rock, jazz) have been banned in Iran for many years, since the days of Khomeini.
[20] In his letter to the Minister of Culture, he wrote 'We believe that accurate dissemination of news and information is necessary for political growth and awareness as well as effective interaction among nations in today's world.
Reporters employed by the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) have only been allowed to cover United Nations events and are only able to travel within a 17-mile (27.4-kilometer) radius of New York City.
[citation needed] Critics accuse Iran of using filtering technology to censor more sites than any country, except the People's Republic of China.
Ahmadinejad's religious beliefs in the imminent return of the "occulted" Shi'a Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi have alarmed some Western commentators.
[27]Former CIA officer Robert Baer said, in the context of evaluating a nuclear strike on Iran, that Ahmadinejad and others in the Iranian government are "apocalyptic Shiites."
"[28] Some have conjectured that his actions are strictly a means of bolstering his standing among devout Muslims, and cannot be interpreted as the existence of an "apocalyptic Shiite" group.
