Protests Go On In Iran With Students Forcing Government Spokesman To Leave

Students at Tehran’s Sharif University sat together at the campus for lunch on October 24, 2022.
Students at Tehran’s Sharif University sat together at the campus for lunch on October 24, 2022.

Antigovernment protests and strikes are simmering across Iran with bouts of tensions reported from universities whose students have been tearing down segregation walls of dining areas. 

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.