Thousands participate in campaign to oppose "proposal" to hand over libraries to the Intellectual Development Center

Thousands of people in Iran signed a campaign opposing the transfer of the libraries of the Center for Intellectual Development, calling on the President of the Islamic Republic and the Minister of Education to prevent the implementation of the Ministry of Cultural Guidance's "proposal."

Meanwhile, a day after publishing the Ministry of Cultural Heritage's proposal to transfer the libraries of the Intellectual Development Center to public libraries "due to loss-making," the Ministry of Cultural Heritage issued a statement on Tuesday, September 12, defending its proposal.

In this announcement, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance's public relations department called the published news about the transfer "lies and fabrications," and at the same time announced that this proposal is "an expert report" that is set to undergo a "legal review."

This is despite the fact that the Children's and Adolescent Writers Association, after publishing this proposal, strongly opposed it and announced that the consequence of this action would be the closure of this institution and the "destruction of specialized cultural and artistic activities for children and adolescents."

The association also emphasized in its statement that the Kanon Cultural and Artistic Centers are a state-owned company affiliated with education, and called issuing a license to transfer it to a non-governmental institution "illegal."

But the reaction to this plan by the Ministry of Guidance has been much broader than the association's protest.

One of these reactions is a campaign that has been launched on social media since Monday and has collected more than 51,000 signatures by the time this news was compiled on Tuesday.

The signatories of this campaign have written to President Ebrahim Raisi and the Minister of Education in his government: "We, the signatories of this campaign, protest against the transfer of this institution to public libraries on the pretext of being harmful, and we ask all people and lovers of culture and art of this land to show their concern about this move by signing this campaign and prevent the destruction of one of the main pillars of culture and art of this land."

According to the Ministry of Guidance's proposal, the government can issue a license to transfer the libraries of the center to public libraries in order to "reduce losses," "provide part of the costs through cost reduction and savings," and "increase and equalize the rights of employees" at the Center for Intellectual Development for Children and Adolescents.

The Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, whose history dates back to 1965 under the management of Leyli Amir Arjomand, currently has approximately one thousand permanent libraries and approximately three thousand employees.

This center, which was the place of activity and rise of prominent artistic and cultural figures such as Abbas Kiarostami and Noureddine Zarrin Kalak before the 1979 revolution, was one of the few government institutions that was not closed after the victory of the revolution, but especially in recent years, with extensive changes among its directors, efforts have been made to operate more in line with the cultural policies of the Islamic Republic.

In its announcement today, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage announced the purpose of developing and proposing the transfer of the center's libraries, including "strengthening and enhancing the cultural and authentic flow."

Following the publication of news of this proposal on social media, most users, recalling their memories of the educational center libraries, compared the transfer of these cultural centers due to financial losses to the activities of government propaganda and political institutions with large budgets.

Source: Radio Farda