As the crackdown on students in Iran continues, new limitations are imposed on the ‎dispatch of students to study outside the county, and official talk of barring students from ‎going to adversarial countries for education, the Attorney General of Iran addressed the ‎scientific and cultural leaders of Iran through a letter calling on them to be more watchful ‎of Iranian students studying outside the country and has instructed them to provide for ‎more disciplinary and at the same time instructive measures on them.‎

In a speech to the Minister of Science, the Minister of Health and the officials of Azad ‎University Cultural Revolution bureau, which criticized their respective agencies in their ‎supervision of Iranian students outside the country, Dori Najafabadi called for more ‎controls over the students, justifying it on “national identity” and “Islamic grandeur” ‎terms.‎

In previous similar sessions, the Attorney General had emphasized “activating religious ‎and cultural propagandists”, “the creation of Islamic student associations for Iranians and ‎non-Iranians” for the promotion of religious, cultural and scientific activities, and ‎‎“strengthening the religious and national pride of students outside”, and “a greater ‎tangible control of the students by the Ministry of Science aimed at dealing with elements ‎that harm [Iran’s] national security, and Islam and Shiite pride.”‎

Another point raised in the Attorney General’s recent letter is the guarantees for ‎implementing the decision, in other words providing for reprimands such as “withholding ‎education permits”, or “the right to be admitted to domestic universities”, and in more ‎severe cases, coordination with Iranian missions abroad to prevent students from ‎returning to Iran.”‎

Currently there are about 70,000 Iranians studying outside the country, most of whom are ‎not on government scholarships. Since many years ago, these students have created some ‎‎100 Islamic associations in universities outside Iran.‎

According to specialists, this new program will creates measures to deal with Iranian ‎students outside the country in the same fashion that officials in Iran have been dealing ‎with domestic students. These analysts believe that these measures are in fact the ‎groundwork for the second round of measures to export the Islamic revolution outside the ‎country. Iran experienced the first round of exporting its 1979 revolution soon after the ‎collapse of the Pahlavi monarchy and the victory of the religious forces.‎