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17.01.2007

Iran's President Attempts to Crush Pro-Democracy Student Movement

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is purging Iran's universities of intellectuals in an attempt to crush pro-democracy student movements and reinforce his government's radical grip on power. The Iranian regime has enforced the burial of "martyrs" on university campuses so that security forces can enter schools and keep students under tight surveillance. Ahmadinejad has also appointed an extreme cleric to the head of Tehran University to terrorize students into toeing the party line. Students brave enough to protest the regime are often thrown in jail and tortured.

In September 2006 Ahmadinejad announced he is removing liberal teachers and pro-democracy thinkers from Iran's universities on the grounds they promote non Islamic ideas: "Today students should protest and shout at the president asking why some liberal and secular professors are still present in the universities. Our educational system has been under the influence of the secular system for 150 years. Colonialism is seeking the spread of its own secular system." [1]

 Iranian students can now only attend university if they sign a "commitment letter" that clearly states their education will be terminated if they hold views contrary to the regime. Many students are abruptly removed from school in the middle of their studies after being suspected of this "crime." Before admittance all students are subject to intense religious testing. [2]

Countless students and teachers have been thrown in jail for their views. Jailed students, teachers and intellectuals are subjected to unlimited solitary confinement and horrific torture. Ahmad Batebi, a student made famous when he was photographed holding up the bloodstained T-shirt of a fellow student beaten by paramilitaries at a demonstration was sentenced to 15 years in jail. After a rare meeting with A United Nations human rights envoy during a brief leave from prison, Batebi was abducted and subjected to psychological threats, sleep deprivation and torture before being thrown back into jail. Batebi wrote that: soldiers bound his hands to plumbing pipes, beat his head and abdominal area with soldiers' shoes, and held him under a drain full of excrement for so long that he was unable to breathe. Another 'think crime' prisoner Arzhang Davoudi managed to tell reporters via a prison telephone about the conditions inside the jail: "I can't hear in one ear now because of the beatings and I have trouble seeing out of my left eye…I don't regret anything and I didn't confess to anything. I don't co-operate at all... We want the world to know all the brutality that is going on in Iran, especially against intellectuals." [3]

On July 9, 1999 a group of Iranian students held a peaceful protest at Tehran University against the government's closure of a popular newspaper. The paper was run by a reformist political party and was shut down by order of a "press court" that answered to the hardline judiciary. The demonstration spread to other dormitories and students were brutally suppressed by paramilitary units including plain clothed Basij, and the Ansar-e-Hezbollah who were backed up by the national police force. The militant groups and police chased the students inside the dormitories, beat up students, smashed up rooms and destroyed academic equipment and papers. Protests soon spread to other universities and these were also violently suppressed. Students then took to the streets in massive demonstrations and the Iranian regime responded with a heavy hand; thousands of students were arrested, countless protestors were injured and some even killed. There are conflicting reports on how many students were killed, Iranian state controlled media claims only one student was killed, while other sources say the regime killed as many as 30 people during demonstrations.  Some students arrested during the riots of 1999 are still languishing in jail today. [4]

Student deaths in jail are covered up by the regime and reliable figures of how many have been murdered and tortured are not available due to Iranian censorship. Only when information is smuggled out of Iran and western organizations take notice are they recorded. Akbar Mohammadi, a 29 year old student, was sentenced to death for 'crimes against god" after peacefully protesting against the Iranian government in 1999. He later appealed the sentence and had his punishment reduced to 15 years imprisonment. Mohammedi was severely tortured in jail and as a result sustained life threatening injuries. He went on a hunger strike in 2006 after he was denied access to medical treatment to treat his wounds. The Iranian regime ignored his pleas and on July 31st, 2006 Mohammadi passed away in the second week of his hunger strike. [5]

Protests against the government have become a rarity in Iran since Ahmadinejad took power in 2005. His iron fist policy against dissent and eradication of democratic reforms approved by his predecessor have terrorized the Iranian people against expressing discontent with the regime or voicing their opinions. In a daring challenge to that regime, Iranian students disrupted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his speech at a university in December 2006. Extremely brave students set off fireworks, burned pictures of Ahmadinejad, waved banners that read "Fascist president, the polytechnic is not for you" and chanted "Death to the dictator." About 50 students took part in the protest and most have since gone underground, fearing their lives. [6]

 

References

  [1] Tait, Robert, "Iranian president calls for purge of liberal lecturers," The Guardian, September 6, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1865729,00.html 

"Mass purges at Iranian Universities," BBC, December 20, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6196069.stm?lsf

Harris, Francis, "Ahmadinejad tells students to purge universities of liberal professors," The Telegraph, September 6, 2006
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/06/wiran06.xml

[2] Human Rights Watch Report, October 6, 2006
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iran1006/iran1006web.pdf

[3] De Luce, Dan, "kidnapped, jailed, beaten...over a bloodied T-shirt," The Guardian, April 4, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1185317,00.html

La Guardia, Anton, "Hundreds jailed as Iran rounds up protestors," The Telegraph, June 23, 2003
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/23/wiran23.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/06/23/ixportal.html

"Iran's hardliners crush dissent with torture," The Guardian, June 7, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1232799,00.html

Penketh, Anne and Taylor Jerome, "Dissident Iranian leads hunger strike for political prisoners," The Independent, July 12, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1173236.ece

[4] "The protests which shook Iran," BBC, September 12, 1999
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/394155.stm

Hari, Johann, "The next Tiananmen Square will be in Tehran," The Independent, June 17, 2003
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article109152.ece

[5] Tait, Robert, "outcry as dissident dies in Iranian jail," The Guardian, August 1, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1834620,00.html

Amnesty International report, August 1, 2006
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE130862006

[6] Tait, Robert, "Iranian students hide in fear for their lives after venting fury at Ahmadinejad," The Guardian, December 18, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1974334,00.html

Fathi, Nazila, "Iran's silenced students strike back," The Scotsman, December 24, 2006
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1909242006

 

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