Iran students plan protest against government crackdown

Iran Focus:

Student Union members from the both Medical Sciences University and the University of Shiraz (Western Iran) plan to hold a demonstration on Saturday “to protest the new wave of pressure on the student movement and in support of political prisoners”. READ MORE

They announced that the demonstration would start in the morning and take place on campus in the University of Shiraz.

There have been a string of university hunger strikes across the country over the past few days, with students protesting the new government crackdown and calling for the release of political prisoners.

On Monday, students in Payam-Nour University of Ardebil (northwest Iran) and students in the University of Yazd (central Iran) simultaneously began a hunger strike, protesting the arrests of fellow student activists.

Payam-Nour University students announced in a statement, “In memory of those who could use their wealth of knowledge for educating the county’s youth and themselves become society’s educated class but who are instead imprisoned for voicing their opinion and belief, we will go on political hunger strike”.

Campus protests have also been reported in a dozen universities across Iran in recent days. Universities of Tehran, Amir Kabir (Tehran), Zanjan, Isfahan, Jahrom, Khoy, Shahr-e Kord and Zabol are among the universities across the country that have witnessed student protests and, on some occasions, clashes between students and security forces in recent days.

As student protests continue to rise, the government has widened its crackdown on campuses. Last week, eight students in Tehran University, including Karim Assayesh, an activist in Tehran University’s Law School, were summoned to the Disciplinary Committee to face expulsion. The Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran last week sentenced Mojtaba Najafi, a student activist in Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabai University, to four months in prison.