‘Pro-Iran regime’ University of Arkansas prof. now under investigation over academic fraud: Publisher

A University of Arkansas professor removed from her position for her apparent pro-Iranian regime stance is now under investigation for potential academic fraud, The Post has learned.

Shirin Saeidi was removed as director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies last week after it emerged she used the school’s letterhead to write a letter of support for a convicted Iranian war criminal.

Now her 2022 PhD dissertation “Women and The Islamic Republic: How Gendered Citizenship Conditions the Iranian State” is under probe by the publisher of her thesis for alleged fabrication and using material without permission.

A US based Iranian dissident group activist group claim they “uncovered patterns of misuse of survivor testimony, and unauthorized claims of interviews with former political prisoners.”

Among the former political prisoners whose testimony was used without her permission is Maryam Nouri, according to Alliance Against the Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), who have been investigating Saeidi.

Nouri, who is based in Germany, alleged Saeidi had used parts of her own memoir “In Search of Liberation” in her dissertation “without my written or verbal permission.”

“I was genuinely shocked by the extent of fabrication, fraud, and dishonesty,” said Nouri in an email interview with The Post.

“For more than 40 years, a regime that crawled out of the depths of hell has wrapped its claws around Iran and crushed human life.

“Prisoners are caught in those claws, and it tears their lives apart. They shredded my husband and thousands of others inside their prisons.

“Now, Shirin Saeedi has tried to sharpen the claws of that same regime, using her university positions to tear apart, once again, the images and testimonies I worked to preserve.”

Nouri was imprisoned in 1985 when she was pregnant. She was forced to deliver her son while incarcerated, she said.

Nouri also sent a letter to Cambridge University Press, who published the doctoral dissertation, complaining about what she called the fraudulent use of her story.

A spokesperson for that company told The Post Tuesday: “We are investigating these serious allegations.”

Saeidi did not respond to a request for comment for this story from The Post.

Saeidi was reprimanded by the school last week for using its letterhead to appeal for the release of Hamid Nouri (no relation to Maryam Nouri).  

He was convicted by a Swedish court in 2022 of ordering the execution of thousands of political prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in 1988, according to AAIRIA, which provided a copy of Saeidi’s letter to The Post.

In posts shared on X in November Saeidi praised Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offering prayers for his protection and noting that he is “the leader who kept Iran intact during the Israeli attack, May god protect you,” referencing the attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists.

She has called Israel a “terrorist state” and a “genocidal state” on X.

Since The Post’s story about her last week, Saeidi has claimed that the University of Arkansas has infringed upon her freedom of speech in a nearly three-hour rant online.

She claimed that the school’s actions in removing her from her administrative position were taken from a “Zionist lobby playbook.”

Saeidi’s case was also taken up by Islamic Republic-affiliated media outlets in Iran, falsely claiming that she was removed from her position as head of the Middle Eastern Studies department for her tweets about Israel.