RIGHTS-IRAN:
Students Unfazed by Arrests, Suppression
Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN, Jul 11 (IPS) - When six members of Iran’s largest students’ organisation, ‘Office to Foster Unity’, risked arrest and indefinite imprisonment to stage a sit-in demonstration, this week, it was a measure of their determination to take on the suppressive, hard line regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
As expected, security and police officials arrested the six outside Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT) on Monday as they demonstrated to commemorate the anniversary of the Jul. 9, 1999 crackdown on the student movement.
The offices of former members of the student body still active under the name of Office to Foster Unity Alumni Organisation were raided later and ten more activists were arrested. Security personnel fired in the air, smashed doors and took away documents and computers, Advar News, the alumni organisation's news portal reported.
"A day before the anniversary of Jul. 9 the AUT's public relations announced the electricity would be caught off the next day for repairs and the university would be closed, but it was obvious there was no problem with the electricity. They just wanted to upset students' plans to commemorate Jul. 9," a student activist of AUT told IPS on the condition of anonymity.
"The sit-in of the Office to Foster Unity central council members who were holding placards commemorating Jul. 9 and protesting the continued detention of eight students of AUT began six in the morning in front of the university gate. They were arrested and whisked away around seven-thirty so that they wouldn't be able to attract the public's attention," he said.
Eight years ago on Jul. 9, 1999 the campus of Tehran University was raided by the police, security people, plainclothesmen and vigilantes. Dormitory rooms and students' belongings were destroyed or burned and the students themselves, many of them sleeping in their rooms and unaware of the happenings outside, were brutally beaten. Some students were thrown out from windows and rooftops. Tens of students were seriously injured and one student was shot dead by vigilantes.
"The students had, the night before, protested peacefully in front of the campus against the ban imposed on a veteran reformist newspaper that had published a top secret intelligence ministry document on the plans to suppress the free press, but the students' protest was nothing out of the ordinary. Hardliners and vigilantes had been waiting for an excuse for confrontation," a former student of the university and eyewitness told IPS.
"The street riots following the incident were successfully suppressed. A couple of students were tortured to confess on TV that they had received money from abroad to overthrow the Islamic Republic. The reformist president (Mohammad Khatami) had zero control on the hard line dominated security bodies or the police and therefore failed to provide any protection to the students," he said.
"The agents carrying out the raids and those who had ordered it and their vigilante supporters were however given protection by the judiciary and were acquitted of all charges and nobody was ever punished. Instead, a number of students were arrested, tried for instigating a riot and put in jail. Some of them like Akbar Batebi whose picture holding a bloody shirt appeared on the cover of the Economist magazine are still languishing in prison. Students lost all hope, they had no one to turn to," he added.
After several years of quiet anger and disillusionment with reforms, political activity has increased considerably in Iranian universities. Most student groups had generally boycotted or remained indifferent to elections for several years, but they are showing signs of involvement and interest again as Iran's parliament elections, scheduled for Mar. 14, 2008, approach.
"The pressure on the students as one of the society's main reference groups has intensified greatly over the past year. After the Tehran University incident of 1999 students just lost their interest as they saw no prospects for change. They were also very unhappy with the reformists and president Khatami for failing to protect them," a student activist from Tehran University told IPS, asking to remain anonymous.
"Students are becoming involved again as the government intensifies its efforts to bring them under control by various means like threats of expulsion, preventing them from continuing their education and all the arrests. The hard line establishment rightly considers the student movement, along with women's movement and workers’ unions, a serious threat to its existence and therefore, will resort to every means to suppress them," she said.
Two months ago publication of a cartoon allegedly insulting the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the prophet's household in four campus newsletters of AUT led to the arrest of several student activists. The newsletters were run by members of the Students’ Islamic Association and group immediately denied any association with the insulting material and claimed that the publications had been forged in their name.
The eight students arrested for the publication of the cartoon and articles between May 3 and Jun. 6 are still being held with no access to legal counsel in the security detention ward of Tehran's notorious Evin prison and two of them are in solitary confinement, Amirkabir, a newsletter published by the university students reported.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), on Jun. 22, expressed fears for the students placed in prolonged solitary confinement. Several of them have have had no contact with their families since their arrest and were at risk of psychological abuse and torture, HRW said in a press release.
The U.S.-based rights group has called on Tehran to free eight student editors and activists who, it believed, said were being held on charges of blasphemy.
Iran rejects accusations it is violating human rights and intimidating opponents advocating democratic change, telling the West it should focus on it own rights problems instead.
Students in various Iranian universities have repeatedly protested the imprisonment of AUT student activists and dozens of students of several universities in Mashad, Iran's largest religious city, staged a symbolic one-day hunger strike on Jul. 5 and demanded the release of the detained students, Iranian Students News Agency reported.
Besides students, the government and the fundamentalist, militarist establishment supporting Ahmadinejad have in the past several months increased their attacks on women's rights, human rights, labour activists and the press. A prominent pro-reforms news agency (ILNA) had to suspend its activities last week after its chief editor was forced to resign. The agency had given extensive coverage to student-related news.
"There are two reasons for suppressing students. One is that the hard line fanatics are repulsed and angered by the youth's indifference to their values. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, the President’s hard line mentor, recently complained about what he considers moral corruption among university students. Their other motivation is fear of losing the coming parliament elections," an analyst in Tehran requesting not be quoted by name told IPS.
"Hardliners failed to unite and they lost a considerable number of seats to reformists in nationwide city and village council elections a few months ago. Winning in parliament elections is even more vital. If hardliners are to win the next parliament elections, they'll have to do everything in their power to silence rivals," he said.
"Students are like envoys of political groups. They can take new ideas back to their small towns and mobilise people around them. Reformists, encouraged by the results of their unity in the previous election, are successfully gathering around Khatami whose popularity is on the increase again. Hardliners have no other choice than suppressing the pro-reforms students and putting pressure on political parties and the press to guarantee themselves a hassle-free victory," the analyst added.
(END/2007)
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