The hunger strike of the students of Tarbiat Moalem University of Karaj started on May 29th in protest to the educational and welfare problems, poor quality of University’s food, and the strain and striction placed on students by University Security Guard. During the 12 days of protest, a total of 126 students joined the hunger strike, 40 of whom were taken to hospital for physical weakness caused by the strike. The hunger strikers spent all 12 days and nights on the campus.
Officials stroke back by taking advantage of the holiday period in the country, thereby placing student under extreme pressure. Disrupting the water and electricity, as well as the mobile phones and Internet services in the University, and intimidating the student’s families, are some examples of the measures taken by the official to pressure students into ending their hunger strike.
Large demonstrations were held with participation of thousands of students during 12 days students’ outburst. The considerable participation by female students in the protest, even during the night demonstrations, was one of the unique aspects of the students protest in Tarbiat Moalem University of Karaj. The female students also had strong presence in Sahand University of Tabriz protest last month.
On the 10th day of the protests, the students held a demonstration which was attended by 3000 students where they announced they will not take their exams because of the hunger strike of their classmate. They again insisted on their request including removal of the Cultural Deputy of the University, a written apology issued by the head of University Guard, improvement of the condition of dormitories and the quality of food, reopening of the central study hall, assurance that the participants in the protests will not face disciplinary actions, and finally postponing the exams’ dates.
The Students Protest in
Acceptance of all students requests meant the unconditional surrendering of university officials to the students. So these protest ended up on Tuesday10 June.
After Sahand University of Tabriz, the student’s protest of Tarbiat Moalem University of Karaj is considered another great victory for student’s movement in
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.
