Parliamentary Candidates with Fake Degrees
The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office has instructed the General Directorate of Student Affairs to provide the names and documents related to the fake educational degrees of more than one hundred candidates for parliamentary representation within the next 72 hours.
According to Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s news agency, Ali Salehi, the Tehran prosecutor, stated today that upon receiving the report from the Director General of Student Affairs, the claims will be verified, and if such violations by the mentioned individuals are confirmed, a legal case will be filed against them.
Hamed Saqafi, the Director General of Student Affairs in Iran, stated yesterday that more than one hundred recent candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly had fake educational degrees.
Mr. Saqafi mentioned that having fake degrees is not a new phenomenon in Iran. More than a hundred of these individuals had counterfeit academic credentials, which were discovered through the electronic database of the country’s educational information and documents, operated by the Student Affairs Organization.
Fake degrees are common in Iran, and the police periodically announce the dismantling of document forgery rings. Having fake degrees among government and parliamentary members also has a history and often causes media uproar.
One of the well-known cases of fake degrees was the incident involving Ali Kordan, whom Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed as the Minister of Interior.