Iran has banned the teaching of English in primary schools, a senior education official said, after the country’s Supreme Leader said early learning of the language opened the way to a Western “cultural invasion”.

“Teaching English in government and non-government primary schools in the official curriculum is against laws and regulations,” Mehdi Navid-Adham, head of the state-run High Education Council, told state television late on Saturday.

In fear of overthrow and desperate of confronting the popular nationwide uprising, the clerical regime has started blind arrests and so far detained at least 1,000 in the first four days of the uprising.

Deputy governor of Tehran province, Ali Asghar Naserbakht, said on Sunday that some 200 people arrested on December 30, the third day of the uprising in the area between “Enqelab Square and Mosadeq Square” in Tehran.

Ali Azadeh, governor of Markazi province, said in an interview on December 31 that on December 30 “we arrested more than 100… in Arak, and we think that in the next few days we will identify and arrest more of the attackers with the information we have obtained."

"50 to 60 people have been arrested in Kashan's illegal gatherings," State-run Mehr News Agency quoted the Kashan prosecutor who added "any illegal gathering and insurgents will be dealt with seriously. The law enforcement officers will deal with any unauthorized gathering violently and legally.”

• صفحه قبل ←