TEHRAN -- Mahnaz Abdollahkhan Gorji, an expert on manuscript books, has been appointed to the National Museum of Iran (NMI).
The appointment was announced by the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) in a press release on Monday.
The CHTHO gave no details about Abdollahkhan Gorji’s record, but some Persian articles on the internet refer to her as an expert on rare manuscript books.
Four people presided over the NMI during the two terms of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration.
The first one was Mohammadreza Mehrandish, a film expert who was a close friend of CHTHO former director Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaii, who then became Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff.
In February 2010, he was replaced by Azadeh Ardakani, a microbiologist who, it was claimed, was the English tutor for Rahim-Mashaii and his successor Hamidreza Baqaii.
However, she was dismissed after judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei confirmed the arrests of some CHTHO officials in connection with the conservatives’ struggle against the “deviant current”, a term used to refer Rahim-Mashaii and his entourage when to Rahim-Mashaii was Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff.
The “deviant current” is allegedly trying to undermine the role of Iran’s influential clerics.
Afterwards, Dariush Akbarzadeh was appointed as acting director of the museum and shortly after, Asadollah Mohammadpur took the helm at the NMI.
MMS/YAW
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