Global Coalition against Scientific Apartheid’ conference

Text of Speech by Prof. Elham Aminzadeh, the Vice President  for International Affairs,  University of Tehran at Global Coalition against Scientific Apartheid’ conference on 12 November, 2023

Prof. Elham Aminzadeh, the Vice President  for International Affairs,  University of Tehran, stated in this conference: It is always thought that discrimination is in the economic, political, and cultural fields, and discrimination is less talked about in the scientific field, but since In the global flow and international circulation of science, any kind of discrimination and apartheid leads to the tension and anger of nations, scientific apartheid can also create a reaction in nations, so it is necessary for the developed world to end apartheid and racial discrimination in order to prevent from endangering international peace and security.

Referring to the obstacles of publishing scientific articles, especially in the field of humanities and participating in scientific and technological conferences and exchanges, Vice President for International Affairs of Tehran University said: sometimes we see this discrimination and apartheid, but really in connection with this apartheid and this discrimination, should the Islamic Republic of Iran be stopped?

And is there a right for countries to discriminate and sanction the circulation of scientific resources?

The Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs said: The Supreme Leader emphasized in 2016 that stopping Iran's scientific progress is the enemy's goal and one should be careful that in the name of joining the global family, the elements of this global family and the rules governing this family are all determined by the Westerners should not be the reproduction of the culture of dependence.

She added: This means that we should not play in the name of scientific interaction in a field whose elements and regulations have been defined by others who are not our friends.

In another part of her speech, the Vice  President  for International Affairs  at University of Tehran , referring to the growth of Iran's science production, said: "According to statistics, the speed of scientific progress in Iran at one point was 13 times of the world average, and this speed must be continued in order not to fall behind in science."

Prof. Aminzadeh pointed out: The Supreme Leader emphasized that the possibility of scientific progress and improvement of human and natural resources of Iran is not a myth and is a fact that the Westerners themselves acknowledge.

She added: Some people believe that because we love Iran, we talk about its scientific progress, but recently, in the international meetings that they attended in University of Tehran, they admitted that the scientific status of Iranian professors in the world rankings is very high.

The Vice President for International Affairs at University of Tehran asked the question, what is the international duty of governments and international organizations? She said: After the United Nations Charter and the 1966 Human Rights Covenants, the documents of the international organization UNESCO contain the right of education and the obligation of governments for fair scientific exchanges. This means that if we ever want to be punished to get our rights in this field, we must mention these documents step by step in this indictment.

She added: The first agreement within the framework of the UNESCO international organization was published in 1948 under the title of Document Facilitating the International Flow of Audiovisual and Educational Materials of an Educational, Scientific and Cultural Nature, and this document shows that no one has the right to stop these exchanges.

The Vice President for International Affairs of University of  Tehran continued her explanation about the existing international documents for the freedom of international scientific publications and said: In June 1950, we have the document for the import of educational, scientific and cultural works, and the World Copyright Convention in 1952 and in 1958. The Convention on the Freedom of International Exchange of Publications was offered and also the document for the protection of cultural assets in armed conflicts was presented in 1999, but now we see that there are cultural and historical works in the Gaza region, especially the history of religions, which have been destroyed by the uncultured Zionist regime of these cultural reserves of the West Asia is being destroyed.

She added: It seems that one of the results of this conference is that the UNESCO organization becomes the public defender of these cultural elements.

The Vice President for International Affairs, at University of Tehran said: These bombs, which intelligently search for victims in the corridors of the hospital, must have been behind these calculations by a scientist who made such calculations, and such knowledge cannot be called science.

Prof. Aminzadeh, referring to the speech of the President of UT  about the necessity of redefining science, freedom and justice, said:

In the Islamic Republic, it has been emphasized that scientific apartheid must be fought, and our tools to fight it are scientific jihad, scientific diplomacy, and explanation jihad, and we have been successful in this field.

The Vice  President  for  International  Affairs, University of Tehran presented the statistics of the scientific achievements of the University of Tehran and said: These statistics show how during the 40 years of scientific apartheid against Iran, we were able to take over the UNESCO seats.

He stated: Out of 17 UNESCO seats in the country, 7 of them have been created in University of Tehran , including technical and engineering seats, water recycling, interdisciplinary research in diabetes, entrepreneurship, social health, culture and virtual space and the architecture chair .

Prof.  Aminzadeh added: 7 professors of UT are in charge of these chairs and the international organization UNESCO has recognized these people.

Pointing to his non-acceptance of Unesco to establish Chair of Clean Energies at University of Tehran as an example of scientific apartheid.

Vice President for International Affairs at University of Tehran also stated that the University of Tehran is trying to improve its international ranking in QS, Shanghai, Times and US News and the QS system from 250 to the rank of 232 and added: The university's rank is 360 in QS, 450 in Times, 401 in Shanghai, and 329 in US News.

She pointed out: The purpose of presenting these statistics is that I want to state that we have not stopped and we are not stopping, and we are moving forward, and the determination of the scientific community of the country is to neutralize scientific apartheid and take steps towards the promotion of science and knowledge, ethics and peace and  security .