Statement by the Free Iran Scholars Network (FISN)
The Free Iran Scholars Network (FISN) condemns the Iranian regime’s continued instrumentalization of academic institutions and internationally respected scientists to advance a false narrative of legitimacy, openness, and scientific progress.
Universities are sacred spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, independent inquiry, and the free exchange of ideas. They should never serve as instruments of political propaganda for a government that systematically criminalizes intellectual freedom and suppresses dissent.
The reality facing Iran’s academic community stands in stark contrast to the image the regime seeks to project. Iranian universities have become sites of surveillance, intimidation, arbitrary expulsions, and political repression. Students, professors, and researchers have been imprisoned, tortured, dismissed from their positions, or forced into exile simply for expressing independent views or peacefully advocating for fundamental rights.
Many others have been imprisoned, tortured, forcibly disappeared, or executed, with a sharp escalation in executions and state violence since the beginning of this year. Some have also been exiled, including members of our own network, forced to leave Iran and our communities as part of this broader campaign of repression that seeks to silence critical voices both inside and outside Iran. This campaign of repression is not only an attack on individuals; it is an assault on knowledge, intellectual freedom, and the very purpose of the university.
The regime understands the symbolic power of internationally respected scholars. Their presence is routinely used to suggest that Iranian academic institutions function as normal centers of learning. They do not. Academic life cannot flourish where fear replaces freedom, where ideology replaces independent scholarship, and where prisons stand closer to truth than lecture halls.
FISN emphasizes that our criticism is directed not at the international scholars who participate in scientific exchanges, but at the regime that weaponizes those exchanges to sanitize its human rights record and legitimize institutions that operate under political coercion.
We call upon universities, scientific organizations, and scholars worldwide to remain vigilant against the misuse of academic engagement for propaganda. International academic cooperation should strengthen freedom, protect persecuted scholars, and uphold the autonomy and integrity of universities, not provide cover for repression.
We stand in solidarity with Iran’s students, professors, researchers, and academic staff who are fighting for a free Iranian republic. Their courage represents the true face of Iranian academia.
Free Iran Scholars Network (FISN)
August 7, 2026