On Monday 19 May 2008, at the first anniversary of the Polytechnic University Students, Majid Tavakoli, Ehsan Mansuri and Ahmad Ghassaban arrest, a meeting was held by “the Committee of the Arbitrary Detention”.
The families of three arrested students, students of different universities, some political activists and lawyers participated in this meeting.
Ali Nikoonesbati, who was recently sentenced to 5 months imprisonment, was first speaker of this meeting. He pointed out the judicial cases of some student activists and ambiguities in their investigation and legal proceedings.
After that, the letter of Majid Tavakoli’s mother, who has not seen her son since his arrest (one year ago), was read. She expressed her hope to accept the demand of provisional release by the related officials.
Abbas Hakimzadeh, the member of the Islamic Association of Polytechnic University Students who was arrested after the event of fabricated press and spent more than one month in prison, told briefly about his arrest. He, then, addressed to the judicial investigations of the arrested students and mentioned the ambiguities of the final sentence and all pressure that led to issuing long imprisonment for Ghassaban, Tavakoli and Mansuri.
Ismaeil Jabari, one of the political activists, as the other speaker, pointed out the hard condition of the social groups like women, workers and students in current days.
After that, the sister of Abolfazl Jahandar, briefly told about Abolfazl Jahandar condition and referred holding his court in private and considered it as a violation of Islamic Republic constitution. Mrs Jahandar added that the officials did not accept the demand for the provisional release of his brother.
Taghi Rahmani, the other well known activist, who spent 15 years in prison, talked about the present condition and duty of students to ask intellectuals and rulers on the management of the country.
Abdolfatah Soltani was the last speaker of the Committee of Arbitrary Detention Meeting. In his speech, Soltani criticized the treatment of the related officials who do not respect the rules and regulations of the accused person and regard their treatment as the violation of the constitution and laws.
What we have said here is only a brief listing of academic violations and denial of right to education in Iranian universities today. Students are determined to continue their legal and rightful struggle to promote independence of universities and uphold academic freedoms, although many are sacrificed down this path.
Iran is a state party to both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (without reservation) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), both of which prohibit the execution of persons under the age of 18 at the time of their offense. In ratifying the CRC, Iran declared an extremely broad reservation, “not to apply any provisions or articles of the Convention that are incompatible with Islamic Laws.”
one must not forget that one aspect of “security” cases is the image that they carry for the groups that advance such issues. Therefore, before fake charges take to the news-media and become public, those who have had a hand in arresting the students must be weakened. Otherwise, after the severe charges are made public, repeated and are tied to the image of the actors, even the intervention of the head of the judiciary (as history demonstrates) cannot be of much help to the detainees.
How can we tell the judiciary officials of Iran that according to law juveniles can stay alive and continue to live with appropriate and suitable punishment? How must one make this request from the judiciary a public and wide-spread demand and point out that killing a juvenile who has not wholeheartedly committed an act does not solve any of the real problems facing the country?
Thousands of university students in an Iranian city have held a protest against the attempted sexual harassment of a female colleague by a top university official, the press reported on Monday. About 3,000 students at the university in the northwestern city of Zanjan staged the sit-in protest over the weekend at a sports hall on campus, the reports said.
