Reza Faraji Dana, Iran's minister of science, research and technology, has received a warning card from parliament. Faraji Dana is the second member of the new cabinet — after Minister of Education Ali Asghar Faani — to be called to parliament to answer questions in an open session. His answers about his hirings, however, did not satisfy conservative members of parliament (MPs), resulting in the warning card. Any MP who receives three warning cards, known as yellow cards in Iran, is automatically impeached.

Conservatives in the Iranian parliament have targeted Faraji Dana for hiring individuals apparently sympathetic to the 2009 Green Movement protests. But what may really concern conservative Iranian MPs is the role he can play as minister of science in revitalizing Iran’s dormant but potentially explosive student movement.

Faraji  Dana had received a vote of confidence from parliament by a rather low margin in the first place, having been nominated only after President Hassan Rouhani’s first choice, Jafar Milimonfared, was denied a vote of confidence. Rouhani’s second choice, Jafar Towfighi, temporarily assumed the position as a caretaker, but was never nominated given conservative MPs' negative view of his political past.

Conservative MPs in parliament first became alarmed when Milimonfared and Towfighi were hired by Faraji  Dana to work under the Ministry of Science. They also objected to the appointment of other individuals, such as Mojtaba Sadighi as the head of the student organization and Saeed Semnanian as chairman of the board of trustees and censorship board in the Ministry of Science. The MPs objected to the hirings because these individuals were supporters of the Second Khordad Front and had worked for the campaign of Reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the 2009 presidential election.