The attempt of the University Professor and the head of administration office (Vice Chancellor) of the
On Sunday 15 June, the female student was called to the Madadi’s office over a disciplinary hearing. In the meeting, she found out about the intention of the professor who asked her to come to her office at a later date. She was faced with the option of either giving in to Madadi’s demands and advances or facing expulsion. She informed a group of students of the matter.
On the day of the incident (when the female student was meeting with the Madadi), a group of students broke into his office, interrupted his attempted advances on the student, and handed him over to the University Guard office (a disciplinary body which monitors students’ activities).
As soon as the other students learnt about the incident, they gathered in the Campus Sport Hall. Students demanded the removal of the administrator as an offender, as well as apology and resignation of the Minister of Advanced Education, Zahedi. Later on, 3000 students of the
Although the students demanded for the protection and safety of the female student and other protesters, the public prosecutor of Zanjan announced the arrest of the victim. It was also announced other students involved will be called before the Disciplinary Committee. Meanwhile, the University president, Mr. Alireza Nedaf, addressed the protesters, thanking them for their vigilance. “We have asked the students to present relevant evidence because this issue needs further examination (ISNA)”, he said.
Whereas “the details of the university incident” and the video of the students breaking into the Vice-Chancellor’s office has disseminated widely on different websites, on Thursday evening at the government official meeting, Zahedi, Minister of Advanced Education, denied and questioned all the evidences, and made various allegations against students. “This film proves nothing”, he said of the video clip of the incident filmed by the student who broke into Madadi’s office as he was trying to assault the female student.
Prior to this incident, the Student’s Islamic Association was shut down because of the baseless and unfounded accusations such as member’s moral problems and their lack of Islamic behaviour. Madadi, the Vice Chancellor and the offender in this case, was the one who singed the closure sentence of the Association.
Resignation and apology of Zahedi, Minister of Advanced Education
Disclosure of the alleged offence committed by the Vice Chancellor, has had wide reaction in other universities in
It is worth noting that sexual harassment of female students in
The Women Committee of Daftar -Tahkim-Vahdat, central Students Union, wrote an open letter to Zahedi, and severely protested the detention of the female victim. The Women Committee questioned Zahedi’s denial of the incident, and pointed out the verdict of Hana Abdi, the woman Kurd activist recently sentenced to 5 years in prison to be served in exile.
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?
it is easy to predict that the success of student activists in imposing their will and demands on government officials at academic institutions, such as the Teachers Training college and Zanjan University (where the students boldly took the initiative into their own hands), would result in a backlash by extreme right-wing officials who would plan an “instructive” counter-attack against the student movement.Hopefully such a reaction will not come. But from an analytic perspective, one must not negate it altogether.
This is the reason that the moment imprisoned students step out of prison, it becomes clear to every one why they were put behind bars: for simply criticizing the president. It becomes instantly clear why they were subjected to interrogations and what questions were asked of them. These are the events that portray the image of this country. Students, social activists and journalists are certainly not on the list of those that dent this image. The publication of the arrest of students because of their criticism of the president brings forth a caricature image of Mahmud Ahmadinejad which does not match the claims that he made at Columbia University or the image that the regime strives to present about its standing.
There are at least 70 young people on death row who at the time of their arrest were under the age of 16. In the past 12 months, Iranian organisations claim that 80 feminists have been arrested and 20 of them have been sentenced from three to five years in jail. A total of 54 journalists have ended up in prison, several were released without trial after serving jail time, while others remain behind bars. In the past 12 months, 34 newspapers and magazines, among them the feminist magazine Zanan, have been shut down.
