Mostafa Mir-Salim
Quick Facts
Biography
Seyed Mostafa Agha Mirsalim (born 9 June 1947) is a conservative Iranian politician and engineer.
He obtained B.Sc. in Mechanics from Universite de Poitiers in 1969, M.Sc. in Mechanics from École nationale supérieure de mécanique et d'aérotechnique and M.Sc. Fluid Mechanics & Thermodynamics from Attestation d`Eludes Approfondies, Universite de Poitiers both in 1971 and M.Sc. in Internal Combustion Engines from Ecole Nationale superieure de Petrole et des Moteurs in 1972.
Mir-Salim served as the national police chief following the Iranian Revolution. He was proposed by then president Abulhassan Banisadr in July 1980 as a candidate for prime minister as a compromise candidate acceptable to both Banisadr and the Majlis dominated by the Islamic Republican Party. However, Banisadr was pressured to accept Mohammad-Ali Rajai instead. From 1981 to 1989, Mir-Salim was the advisor to then president Ayatollah Khamenei.
In the beginning of 1989, on the occasion of the death and funeral of Hirohito, the 124th Emperor of Japan who had ruled for over 60 years until he died on January 7, Mir-Salim and Hossein Saffar Harandi, a Member of Parliament and the Chairman of Parliament Committee on Agriculture, went to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo to attend the Rites of Imperial Funeral on February 24 with Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Ambassador Extraordinary Plenipotentiary in Japan, and his wife.
Mir-Salim was appointed Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance in 1994. His tenure was characterized by a strongly conservative Islamist direction, aiming to stave off the "cultural onslaught" of Western culture and promote pious Islamic culture in its place, including through the use of repressive measures. The Ministry under his direction was particularly known for closing a number of reformist newspapers.
He was later appointed to the Expediency Discernment Council.
He is Assistant Professor of mechanical engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran.