Iran’s Literati Call For Release of Their Detained Colleagues

On Monday, protesting students at Tehran’s Khaje-Nasir Toosi University of Technology booed Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi and did not let him deliver his speech, with chanting berating slogans against the regime. 

They chanted slogans such as "We don't want murderers to be our guest," and “This is the year of blood, Seyyed Ali (Khamenei) will be gone,” forcing the spokesman to leave his speech unfinished. "I feel that if I am not here, the insults may not continue. Let's schedule the meeting for another time," he said. 

Videos posted on social media showed some students at Sharif University trying to break locked doors and barriers set up by IRGC-affiliated Basij forces at the entrance of the university's cafeteria. In a symbolic move, some other male and female students sat down on the ground at the campus and ate together. 

Students at Hamadan University held a gathering in honor of their classmate Negin Abdolmaleki, 21, who was beaten to death by security forces on October 12. 

Authorities have urged her roommates to say she died of eating expired canned tuna, sources said.

Several other campuses across the country were scenes of protests with students chanting antigovernment slogans or the main motto of the current wave of protests: Women, Life, Liberty. 

In a latest move, officials at Sharif University in Tehran have expelled students who have been at the forefront of protests.

“A number of students who have played a key role in stirring up unrest at university have been temporarily banned from attending the courses,” Sharif university said in an announcement.

They also stated that the canteen of the university would be closed until further notice to uphold gender segregation and prevent mixed dining by male and female students, which has become an act of civil disobedience by students.

Reports say up to now 33 students have been banned from entering Sharif university.

On Sunday, the plainclothes Basiji forces of Sharif University closed the doors of the canteen and placed tables and chairs behind it, blocking students from entering, but the students broke the doors and expelled the Basijis and ate together.

Avant-Garde Student Movement

Since the beginning of the protest movement in mid-September, university students have opened a new chapter of their struggle against the clerical regime with the modern slogan of “Women, Life, Liberty”.

Female students wave their headscarves in the air or stand in front of security forces without their mandatory hijab.

Perseverance and resistance of the students clearly shows that the repressive approach by the government will not work in against this generation born after 2000. Even if the clerical regime can silence their voices for a few days, it cannot stop their fundamental demands.

Students are sending a message to people across the country that the university as a civil institution is still dynamic and alive, despite the policy of expulsion, censorship, and efforts to depoliticize the university.

The dynamism and political awakening also send a clear message to government that students will not remain silent despite repression.

History of Academic Movements in Iran

To reach this point, the university and students experienced many ups and downs during the past three decades. Their movement has been interrupted sometimes due to repression, but it has never been stopped.

In 1999, a student uprising stunned the Iranian capital Tehran for five days. Students objecting to the shutdown of Salam Daily held protests in a struggle for freedom. Between July 8 and 13, the hardliners cracked down on student killing four and injuring nearly 200.

During the following few years many students preferred to leave the country in a dramatic brain drain.

In 2009, the universities were affected by a controversial presidential election. With the formation of the Green Movement and the slogan of “Give back my vote”, students once again took to the streets to protest vote rigging which led to re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

Protests lasted all through the fall of 2009 and hundreds of students were arrested and tortured in prisons around the country, with former inmates alleging mass rape of men, women, and children by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in prisons such as Kahrizak and Evin. Opposition groups said at least 72were killed in the three months following the election.

Ten years later in November 2019, students once again joined the protesters who were angry over an abrupt fuel price hike. The movement, which lasted a week, gradually turned into expression of discontent over economic woes and corruption.

In the most violent and severe antigovernment unrest since the rise of Iran’s Islamic Republic in 1979, the regime shut down the internet nationwide and killed as many as 1,500 people including students.

More Widespread, Modern, Radical in 2022

Now, with nationwide protests rejecting Islamic Republic after the death of Mahsa Amini last month, students nationwide have launched a new movement to stand against the political system.

The attack of Basiji thugs and security forces on Sharif University in September provoked a wave of sympathy in other universities.

It seems this is the largest and most widespread student solidarity with public protests that has spread even to small campuses in remote areas of Iran.

In a letter to the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres on Sunday, they called for measures to end widespread human rights violation by the Islamic Republic’s authorities, asking the body to urgently form an independent committee and call for a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to create a UN investigative and accountability mechanism on Iran government and religious authorities.

In addition to prominent activists, the signatories are law professionals, academicians, and attorneys from countries including Iran, Netherlands, Canada, US, UK, Israel, France, Denmark, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia. 

They said their letter is also aimed at raising awareness and sensitizing law professionals across the globe about what is going on in Iran, urging them to break their silence.

The law professionals also asked the UN to document human rights violation cases committed by the Islamic regime of Iran during the past few weeks, since the current wave of antigovernment protests started following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. “Documentation is very important because it helps us identify patterns of violations and demand accountability of the perpetrators for systematic and premeditated abuses against peaceful protests.”

Despite the heavy presence of security forces and serious disruption of the internet, Iranians took to the streets on Saturday [Oct. 22], wherever they found the chance, while the diaspora gathered in many major cities abroad to tell the world that the rulers of the Islamic Republic do not represent the people of Iran.

Saturday and Wednesday protests called by underground youth groups (Javanane-Mahalat) in various cities have turned into a regular weekly event keeping security forces constantly on their toes these days.

Judging from video footage trickling out, the protests Saturday were by far the largest and most widespread so far despite the massive mobilization of security forces, constant crackdown on protesters and activists, and evermore tighter internet control.

“The anti-riot police have to use even their dilapidated vehicles and pickup trucks to maintain their heavy presence in so many places,” a member of an underground youth group in one of the southern cities of Iran told Iran International.

“The internet has become useless so communication for organizing protests is next to nil,” he said adding that it has been extremely difficult to access social media platforms through VPNs in the past three weeks. “They have constantly been at it to hack our Twitter accounts, too,” he said.

On the same day, over 80,000 expatriates from every political inclination poured into Berlin, Germany, from all over Europe to show their solidarity with the protesters in Iran. According to the spokesman of the German Police around 50,000 were expected to attend but the size of the crowd rose to around 80,000. Similar but smaller rallies were held across the globe, from New Zealand and Australia to US and Canada, to demand an end to the rule of the Islamic Republic.

The diaspora’s turnout has angered the government in Tehran which is trying to belittle it.

The gathering in Berlin was called by an Iranian-Canadian activist, Hamed Esmaeilion, who lost his daughter and wife in the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January 2020 by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Esmaeilion delivered a speech at the spectacular gathering which was reminiscent of Martin Luther King’s famous “We Have a Dream” speech.

“We all have dreams that will only come true if the Islamic Republic collapses. This dream will come true with the toppling of Ali Khamenei’s empire of fear and crime,” he said while the massive crowd cheered him.

“In our dream wind will blow in women’s hair, in our dream children will not be forced to learn ideologies belonging to the Middle Ages, in our dream no one will attack girls’ schools, nobody will push people’s children down from heights or hit their heads against the curb, no one will shoot at them from behind,” Esmaeilion -- a dentist, author, and spokesman of the families of victims of flight PS752 – said.

Esmaeilion urged western countries to stop negotiating with the Islamic Republic and to expel Iran's ambassadors. “No one is asking you to get involved in a war [with the Islamic Republic], no one is asking you to impose sanctions on the [Iranian] people. We are asking you to impose targeted sanctions against the officials of the Islamic Republic,” he said.

Esmaeilion said Western powers should send “a strong political signal” to the regime to show they “believe in the revolution of brave Iranian youth”.

“Demonstrate respect for the most progressive revolution in the history of the Middle East and do not forget that we, the people of Iran, will neither forget nor forgive collaborators with the villainous Islamic Republic,” he added.

In a statement on Sunday, the doctors said people heard the voice of the oppressed people of Iran in all corners of the world, noting that the country is inflamed with protests, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in mid-September. 

They called on the security forces to allow all injured people to receive medical care without interfering in their medical affairs, and and not to enter medical centers. Multiple reports indicate that people injured during protests are afraid to seek medical care at hospitals and clinics for fear of being arrested. Security forces wait in hospitals to identify those who were wounded during protests.

They also urged creating the right atmosphere suitable for hearing people's protests and holding gatherings in a safe environment as well as the unconditional release of all political prisoners. 

Protests in Iran continued Sunday in several cities with people chanting slogans against the government and the Supreme Leader. 

On Saturday, a huge rally of Iranian expatriates in the German capital Berlin was held, angering the government in Tehran which tried to belittle the opposition gathering.