http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=210690
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Mir-Hossein Mousavi dismissed from Iranian Academy of Arts
Tehran Times Art Desk
TEHRAN -- Painter and architect Mir-Hossein Mousavi was fired as director from
the Iranian Academy of Arts (IAA) and poet Ali Mo'allem Damghani was selected
for the position on Tuesday night.
Mo'allem Damghani, 58, is famous for his poems composed on the Islamic
Revolution and 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, known as the Sacred Defense in Iran.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after traveling to Fars Province on Tuesday
morning, came back that evening to head the meeting of the Supreme Cultural
Revolution Council that made the decision. However, he returned to resume his
visit to the province, the Persian service of IRNA reported on Tuesday.
Actor Jahangir Almasi, Ahmadinejad's advisor on veterans affairs and Sacred
Defense author Mojtaba Rahmandust, and Ahmadinejad's media advisor Mehdi Kalhor
were selected as new members of the IAA.
Ahmadinejad's major rival in the 12 June presidential election, Mousavi had
helmed the IAA from 1998 when the academy was established by the Supreme
Cultural Revolution Council headed by former president Seyyed Mohammad Khatami.
In early November, the Iranian government modified the article 8 of the IAA
charter to empower the president to personally appoint the IAA director.
According to the former article, the director was selected by the IAA General
Assembly from among three nominees.
A number of IAA members raised strong objections to the government's decision,
threatening to resign if a director is imposed upon the academy.
Similar modifications have been made in the charters of the Iranian Academy of
Sciences, the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Iranian Academy of
Persian Language and Literature.
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