He left Iran in 2000 after completing a five-year civil engineering course at BIHE.

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The letter also calls on academics around the world to register their disapproval with their Iranian peers, and consider recognizing BIHE coursework or offering scholarships.

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Hoffman, the Education Under Fire campaign's founder, said the fact that BIHE produced "brilliant students" seemed to be viewed by the Iranian government as an affront.

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Former BIHE student Pedram Roushan recently completed a PhD in physics at Princeton University, and is now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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