Valiati Criticizes the Conduct of Student Day Ceremony at Najafabad Azad University

Ali Akbar Velayati, the head of the founding board and board of trustees of Azad Islamic University, referred to part of the Student Day ceremony at Najafabad University as 'utterly trivial.' According to a report on Friday (December 8), Velayati expressed this in a letter addressed to Mehran Majlesi, the president of the Najafabad branch of Azad University. In the letter, he stated that based on 'reliable information received,' the second part of the Student Day ceremony at this university was 'far from the dignity of students, professors, and the university, in utter triviality.' Velayati noted that the first part of the ceremony, which was attended by the family of Mohsen Hojaji, who was killed in Syria, was 'worthy of students' and 'based on the lofty values of the Islamic Republic.' He wrote that the second part of the ceremony was such that the 'spirit' of Ahmad Kazemi and Mohsen Hojaji 'would be disgusted by it.' The head of the founding board and board of trustees of Azad University mentioned in his letter that 'the purpose of emphasizing' December 7 in Iran is 'so that the path is not lost.' However, he criticized that only part of the mentioned ceremony was 'based on the lofty values of the Islamic Republic and worthy of commemorating the martyrs of the nationalization of the oil industry, the Islamic Revolution, the Sacred Defense, and the defense of the shrine, and in general worthy of the dear students of the Islamic Republic of Iran.' This letter was written after a short video from part of the ceremony was circulated on social media, showing several male students present in the hall dancing to lively music. Other attendees, including female students in the hall, also reacted to the music and dance, filming with their mobile phones. This is not the first time such a thing has been published from a student program. However, it is one of the few times that the president of Azad University has publicly criticized such an issue and written an open letter. It seems that the presence of Mohsen Hojaji's family in part of this program, which Islamic Republic officials have heavily exploited for propaganda following his death in Syria, has added a special sensitivity to this matter and led to Ali Akbar Velayati's public criticism. Mohsen Hojaji, from Najafabad in Isfahan, was a member of the 8th Najaf Ashraf Armored Division who fought in the Syrian civil war in favor of Bashar al-Assad. He was killed and beheaded by the Islamic State (ISIS) after being captured by their forces.