Iran’s former science minister says students tortured in July 1999 protests

Iran's Former Science Minister, Mostafa Moeen, revealed that students at Tehran University during the protests of July 1999 were “attacked at night” and had their “arms and legs broken” after being “thrown off from the roof".

Speaking candidly for the first time about the tragedy on the eve of its 25th anniversary, he told the KhabarOnline news website, “It happened even to a foreign student… I visited a Pakistani PhD student in the hospital who had a broken arm and leg. The student was a victim without having committed any sin".

The protests begun by Tehran University students, also known as the Kuye Daneshgah Disaster, were sparked by the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam.

Iranian police and plainclothes security forces attacked protesters and set fire to their dormitories in echoes of the 2022 uprising. The protests quickly spread from the capital to other cities in Iran.

At the time, Amnesty International said that despite the students’ peaceful protest, “police fired tear gas at the students, and they were attacked by members of a state-sanctioned militia group, Ansar-e Hezbollah, who, along with the police, forced their way into student dormitories in Amir Abad, Tehran, beating and ill-treating students and destroying their property.”

The rights group also found students had been tortured including being "whipped on the feet with metal cables, suspended by their limbs, and in at least one case, forcing a detainee’s head into a toilet full of excrement, causing partial drowning".

The protests occurred during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami who refused to support the students. Despite over a thousand arrests and the brutal crackdowns, Iran's judiciary only tried a few low-ranking soldiers, sentencing one to three months in prison and a fine for theft during the raid. All other attackers were acquitted.