TEHRAN, Iran — After six years as Tehran University chancellor, the Farhad Rahbar, 54, was ordered last week to step down from his position by President Hassan Rouhani’s minister of science. Iranians online celebrated and students at Tehran University even laid out sweets underneath a sign that read “Farhad Rahbar is gone.” The crackdown on the 2009 protests, the forced retirement of critical professors and Tehran University’s unique role in protest movements made Rahbar one of the more controversial officials in recent years.
When he was selected as chancellor in 2008, some individuals saw his first decisions as a distressing sign of what was to come.