Parliamentary Candidates with Fake Degrees
The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office ordered the General Directorate of Alumni Affairs of the Student Affairs Organization to provide the names and documents related to the fake educational degrees of more than a hundred parliamentary candidates within the next 72 hours.
According to Mizan, the news agency of Iran’s Judiciary, today Ali Salehi, the Tehran Prosecutor, stated that upon receiving the report from the Director General of Alumni Affairs of the Student Affairs Organization, the alleged claim will be verified, and if such misconduct by the mentioned individuals is confirmed, a judicial case will be filed against the offenders.
Hamed Saghaei, the Director General of Alumni Affairs of the Iranian Student Affairs Organization, said yesterday that more than a hundred recent candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly had fake educational degrees.
Mr. Saghaei said that having fake degrees is not a new phenomenon in Iran. More than a hundred and some of these individuals had fake university documents, which were discovered through the country’s electronic database of information and educational documents, PAMTEC, of the Student Affairs Organization.
Fake degrees are common in Iran, and the police occasionally report the dismantling of document forgery gangs. Having fake degrees among government and parliament members also has a history and causes media uproar.
One of the well-known cases of a fake degree was the story of Ali Kordan, whom Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed as the Minister of the Interior.