Iran University Students on Hunger Strike as Protests Rise

Iran Focus:

Students in the University of Yazd (central Iran) have started a hunger strike today in protest against a recent government clampdown on student activists. The students said they began their hunger strike after recent threats by the authorities against them. A number of students have been arrested by the secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, on bogus charges.

Campus protests have 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.