CAIRO (AP) — It’s been seven weeks since Iran’s government used violence to suppress mass protests across the country. But public resistance to the Islamic Republic remains elusive on Iranian university campuses.
Anti-government demonstrations were held on at least 10 campuses in the past week, according to an exiled Iranian activist who tracks the country’s student movement, four students who witnessed the protests and social media videos verified by The Associated Press.
Students, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said there was growing anger on campus against Iran’s leaders and confusion about the country’s direction.
The simmering tensions on campus come as Iran’s government, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, faces threats of U.S. military action over the country’s nuclear program.
Theocratic governments increasingly threaten students and administrators. A government official warned students this week not to cross a “red line,” while a hardline cleric in Iran’s judiciary said “criminal behavior” would be punished if administrators did not curb protests.
Many universities have closed campuses and moved classes online.
The shift to remote learning is reminiscent of measures taken by authorities late last year. Protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over deteriorating economic conditions in December quickly spread to towns across Iran, and authorities ordered remote learning, shut down the internet and began a bloody crackdown in early January.
Campus protests continue
The full toll from the crackdown has not been released because of internet restrictions imposed by authorities.
The human rights activist news agency said more than 7,000 deaths had been confirmed and thousands more were being investigated. The government acknowledges more than 3,000 deaths but has underestimated or failed to report deaths from past riots.
Ali Taghipour, an exiled Iranian activist who tracks the student movement, said at least 128 university students have died in unrest across the country. “This is the largest massacre of university students in the Islamic Republic,” he said.
“When the state once again established universities, it coincided with the (40-day) commemoration of the killings during the January protests,” Tajpur said, adding that some campus memorials had sparked new anti-government protests.
Protests broke out at Sharif University of Technology and Amir Kabir University on Saturday. Video circulating online, confirmed by The Associated Press, showed scuffles breaking out on both campuses between what appeared to be pro-government supporters, while protesters shouted “Shameless! Shameless!” a slogan often used to taunt security forces and plainclothes agents such as the Basij, an all-volunteer unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that maintains a presence on college campuses through student groups.
Students at the all-female Zahra University in northern Tehran chanted anti-government slogans on Monday, according to video verified by The Associated Press. On the same day, students at the University of Tehran’s School of Foreign Languages held a raucous demonstration, stamping their feet and chanting: “For every person killed, a thousand people stand behind them!” The rally was originally held to commemorate a student killed during protests in January.
Worried about new crackdowns
The protests have raised fears of a new wave of crackdowns. On Tuesday, government spokesman Fatemeh Mohajerani warned students to be careful not to cross “red lines,” and an Iranian state television anchor read a statement from Sharif University’s president apologizing for “inappropriate” activities on campus, the semi-official Meir news agency reported.
The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, said on Wednesday that if education authorities cannot control “crimes” on campus, judicial authorities will step in to track down “crime” on campus, state media reported. Ejhi became the face of Iran’s latest crackdown, calling for swift punishment of protesters.
Tajpur said universities across Iran have banned some students from campus and held disciplinary hearings. Such hearings in the past have resulted in some students being expelled or even barred from continuing college.
Crackdown dampens optimism on campus
Iranian college students frequently launch anti-government protests.
In 1999, university students in Tehran sparked the first demonstrations against the Islamic Republic. Campus unrest also played a key role in protests in support of Iran’s reformist leaders in 2008-2009 and in sustaining overt anti-government demonstrations in 2022, which turned to calls for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy.
The refusal of Iran’s hardliners to make any policy changes, combined with decades of Western sanctions and economic mismanagement that have devastated the country’s middle class, has led many university students to conclude that the Islamic Republic cannot reform, said a doctoral student at the University of Tehran.
The student said the void opened the way for Reza Pahlavi, the son of the king who was deposed in 1979, to become “a serious political cause for some in Iran.” While nostalgia for the period’s economic prosperity grows, memories of the king’s autocratic rule remain mixed.
Years of repression have frustrated the ability of any organized opposition in the country. A social sciences student at the University of Tehran said the crackdown has also reduced the space for any kind of political debate and organizing on campus. “After 2022, about 70% of student clubs are closed,” he said, including a progressive student club he leads.
The student added that he did not have any clear hope of where today’s student protests would lead in the face of foreign military threats and a government willing to use lethal violence to suppress dissent.
“On the one hand we are faced with a government that is not afraid to kill anyone, and on the other hand we are faced with external forces that support people being killed.”
War threat sparks fear on campus
A student at a university in the northern city of Babol said there was growing concern on campus about the impact the war could have on the country.
The student said his personal hope is for Iran to establish a “democratic secular republic,” although he fears armed conflict could cause further suffering and “increase the risk of the country’s disintegration.” Iran is already struggling to maintain full access to basic services such as electricity and water in parts of the country.
Students at Barbor University said the university has kept classes remote since early January to prevent people from gathering on campus. He said many students are skipping remote classes as a form of protest.
At the University of Tehran, the social sciences major said he disagreed with the views of pro-Pahlavi students, in part because the exiled opposition figure called for a U.S. strike against Iran.
“I will never understand someone sitting in London shouting about the United States bombing Iran. How are they going to take responsibility for what happens tomorrow?”
