|
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Dec. 08 – Hundreds of students took part in a demonstration
outside the main gates of the University of Tehran to mark Iran’s national
Student’s Day amid tight police security and a ban on protests.
A student outside the campus told Iran Focus by telephone that State Security
Forces, Iran’s para-military police, attempted to disperse the crowd who
started to gather just after noon, chanting anti-government slogans and
singing patriotic songs in commemoration of the student movement in the
country.
According to the source, despite outnumbering the protestors, police were
unable to disperse the crowd.
Police arrested half a dozen protestors including a young man who was then
taken to ward 209 of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, according to one of his
relatives who sent an email to Iran Focus.
Two female students were detained outside Tehran University’s Faculty of Law
and Political Sciences as protests were gaining momentum and taken to an
unknown location.
A couple were also arrested and taken to Police base 148, while a young man,
who was nabbed while holding up a banner, was detained and taken to an unknown
location.
Power lines were cut in local internet cafes in what appeared to be a
government-orchestrated action to prevent news of the protests from
spreading. Most payphones in the area were also out of action. There were a
large number of plainclothes agents at the site of the university and in
internet cafes.
Many other campuses across Iranian towns and cities were the scenes of
similar protests despite a general ban on Students Day protests throughout
the country.
Late Tuesday, students from the University of Tehran’s Engineering,
Literature and Human Studies, Medical, Dentistry, and Chemistry Faculties
issued a joint statement accusing the authorities of deliberately shutting
down schools and universities in Tehran to prevent large-scale student
protests on Students Day under the pretext of poor air quality.
Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Gholam-Hossein Haddad-Adel gave a stark
warning to students not to rise against the state. “Student action against
the regime is a ploy by the enemy”, he said, adding, “Students must never
loose sight of the reality that they are the target of our enemies who have
thousands of plots and ploys to use universities against the Islamic
Republic”.
Student protests have been on the rise in Iran in recent weeks in the run-up
to the anniversary of the bloody suppression of a rally outside Tehran
University in 1953.
On December 7, 1953, three students were shot dead by policemen during a
rally against the Shah’s dictatorship. The day has been named Students Day
and commemorated on campuses across Iran every year.
|