Iraq's education under siege

[sabra]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK21Ak05.html

Iraq's education under siege

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Academics, along with other professionals, have been increasingly targeted by sectarian violence which continues unchecked across much of Iraq. Thousands of professors and university researchers have long since fled the war-torn country.

An administrator of a large university in Baghdad spoke with Inter Press Service (IPS) on condition of anonymity: "Iraqi universities have turned into militia and death squad headquarters ... Pictures of clerics and sectarian flags all over are not the only problem, but there is the interference of clerics and their followers in everything."

The university employee, who said he feared for his life each day he went to work, explained that religious clerics now had the authority to "sack teachers and students, forbid certain texts, impose certain uniforms and even arrest and kill those who belong to other sects or those who object to their behavior".

He angrily added, "Our government seems to approve all that, as no security office ever intervened to protect teachers and students or make any change to the situation."