Iranian student protests on the occasion of ‘Student Day’ despite regime’s oppressive measures

Student protests on the occasion of ‘Student Day’

Call on international human rights authorities to take immediate action to release arrested students

Despite extensive repressive measures and arresting a large number of students, students’ protest rallies and demonstrations on the occasion of the Student Day (December 7th), which started on Monday, continue at various universities in the country.

On Saturday, December 8^th, a group of students at the University of Tehran gathered in front of the university entrance and chanted anti-government slogans. This was despite the fact that repressive forces had blocked the streets around Tehran University. Students from the Tehran Technical College also demonstrated while chanting: “Student would rather die than accept humiliation”, and the students of the Faculty of Art also chanted: “One, Two, Three, Freedom”.

On the same day students held similar protest gatherings and demonstrations at Sharif University of Technology and Tarbiat Moallem University in Tehran, University of Nooshirvan in Babol, Tabriz University, Garmsar University, Ahvaz University, Semnan University, Sahand University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz University of Technology, Marand University and Urmia University.

In their demonstrations, students chanted slogan: “Imprisoned students must be freed”. They also supported workers’ protests by chanting: “Imprisoned workers must be freed”.

On Sunday, December 9^th, students from some universities, including Tehran University and Allameh University, gathered and marched. Students at the University of Tehran chanted: “Student, Worker, United, United!”

In fear of the spread of the demonstrations and protests, suppressive forces have arrested a large number of university students from Tehran University and other universities in recent days, some of whom have been summoned and threatened by the Intelligence Ministry.

Iranian Resistance calls on all students unions and syndicates in different countries to support Iranian students, and calls on international human rights advocates to take immediate action to free arrested students.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Iranian public opinion surveys cannot be trusted

A university student attends a protest inside Tehran University while a smoke grenade is thrown by

Imagine this: You live in Iran, a suppressive theocracy and a police state with half a dozen security and intelligence organizations; a country whose leadership and senior officials warn you every day that anti-regime sentiments are tantamount to rebellion against God and are punishable by death. Your compatriots are in the midst of a nationwide revolt against the ruling system, young men and women protesters are regularly arrested and their tortured dead bodies are later delivered to their families; your phones are monitored, and your freedom of speech is taken away from you. Then your phone suddenly rings: It’s a survey about your support for the regime change movement. Frightening.

Public opinion under Iran’s theocratic and authoritarian rule can be better understood through qualitative methods such as people’s true expressions in public and private spaces. For example, since December 28, 2017, tens of thousands of Iranians have poured on to the streets of many cities across Iran’s provinces to protest against corruption, the thievery and tyranny of the ruling theocracy, and its funding of proxy armies and terrorists across the region.
The protesters echoed national sentiments with chants of “death to the dictator,” “death to (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei,” “death to (President Hassan) Rouhani,” “reformists, hardliners, your game is now over,” “mullahs, have shame and let go of our country,” and “we will die but will take our country back.”

Obtaining public opinion in Iran through traditional methods comes with many limitations. For example, a new report indicated that only 16.4 percent of Iranians agree that “Iran’s political system needs to undergo fundamental change.” That would mean 68 million people in Iran don’t see a need for fundamental change.

First of all, the demographics and realities on the ground strongly point to the opposite conclusion. More than a quarter of young people aged between 15 and 24 are unemployed; more than 40 percent of the population live below the relative poverty line; and at least 11 million people are currently living in slums around the large cities.

Secondly, such statistics contradict the findings of a report issued by Iran’s own Interior Ministry on Feb. 3. The Ministry pointed out that “people’s trust in the regime has been diminished, institutions have lost their effectiveness.” It added that: “The slogans raised in the protests were 30 percent economical, 70 percent political, and 75 percent of the people sympathized with the demonstrators in 80 Iranian cities.”
In addition, by any definition Iran is ruled by, to put it mildly, an authoritarian regime — therefore any reports of people’s opinions ought to have reference to the prevailing repressive and authoritarian environment as a caveat.

Furthermore, any report on Iran’s public opinion ought to provide detailed and specific data about the process. Any poll result must be accompanied with information about how it was conducted and specific data about its demographic (gender, age, occupation, etc.), validity, survey reliability, response rate, margin of error, and other critical measurements.

It is worth noting that the Iranian regime often attempts to exploit public opinion reports. As Prof. Cale Horne, of Covenant College in the US, has written: “In places where dissenting opinions may be punished harshly, the reliability and validity of politically sensitive public surveys is far from self-evident.” He adds that “when politically sensitive questions have been asked in repressive contexts, data quality has been questionable.” Prof. Horne asks: “To what extent can opinion surveys on politically sensitive topics reflect public opinion in countries intolerant of political dissent?”
Finally, regarding sensitive questions, would any rational observer really expect that an Iranian respondent would give an honest answer to questions regarding national security issues and the regime’s legitimacy over the phone? ​Would the respondent not assume that this is just another ploy by the rulers’ security institutions to identify the potential regime changers?
In a nutshell, the public opinion of Iranian people can be more effectively found in the people’s sophisticated, nuanced and delicate day-to-day resistance to the regime, the widespread protests and chants, as well as activities on various social media platforms in both the Persian and English languages.

 

• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for Commerce and Business.  

Iranian Leaders Speak of Threat of Social Media

A university student attends a protest inside Tehran University in this Dec. 30, 2017

 Having survived popular protests across major cities in Iran, Iranian leaders are now turning to the tools that helped protesters organize and coordinate large-scale demonstrations against the government, which continued for more than a week before the government suppressed them.
A senior Iranian official this week urged the country’s cyberspace authorities to remain vigilant and prevent another potential wave of protests.
On the sidelines of a technical summit in the capital Tehran, where high-ranking officials gathered to discuss the country’s technological challenges, General Gholamreza Jalali expressed concerns over the possibility of yet another round of popular protests aided by social media and the internet.
Jalali is head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization.

 

University students attend an anti-government protest inside Tehran University, in Tehran, Iran.

In December 2017, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest, among other things, the country’s economic policies and the government’s inability to provide economic opportunities for its citizens. Protesters were also demanding more civil liberties.
The country’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, met with cyberspace experts to brainstorm ideas to address what they saw as the challenges and threats that the internet and social media platforms pose to the leadership of the Islamic Republic.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the powerful Guardians Council, told Tasnim news agency, a hard-line media outlet with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), that Khamenei ordered the meeting to take place.

 

Iranian senior cleric Ahmad Khatami delivers his sermon during Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 5, 2018

‘It will bite again’

Jannati, who did not give details of the meeting, said the government must have full control over the internet.
“I’m not saying it [internet] has to be fully blocked,” Jannati reportedly said. “That’s impossible. But we have to reduce [control] it.”
Iranian leaders and their supporters voiced what it sees as the threats posed by people’s access to the internet.
“Cyberspace as a platform for foreigners is a mad dog,” Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hard-line cleric and interim sermon to Tehran’s Friday prayer said last month.
“If left alone, it will bite again,” Khatami added.
Some analysts believe the recent rhetoric against the internet could mean more restrictions.
“The recent quotes we hear these days implies that authorities are preparing grounds for a new round of social media ban in Iran,” a Tehran-based media analyst, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, said.
“It seems that the Iranian supreme leader wants more control over social media platforms, and no one dares to oppose him on that subject,” the analyst added.

Government blocking

Iranian authorities regularly block news websites and social media platforms in addition to blocking foreign television and radio broadcasts to the country.
In an effort to control the flow of communication, the government steers local IP addresses to a domestic internet dubbed National Data Network, where it monitors people’s communication exchanges.
To avoid government surveillance, some users have found ways to bypass blocks put in place by authorities.
Now government officials are signaling they might target encrypted messaging platforms.
“Hard-liners are targeting social media that can be used as an untraceable means of communication,” Mohammad Ali Khorassani, a U.K.-based social media analyst, said.
“These new forms of media are harder to track down and easier to convey encrypted mass messages and (are) very suitable for promoting campaigns,” Khorassani added.
In some cases, when a government cannot monitor some communication platforms, the other solution is complete blockage.
As the protests gained momentum last December, the government blocked Telegram and Instagram in parts of the country. The two social media applications are widely used across the country.
The block stayed in place for several days until the protests waned. President Hassan Rouhani, who to some extent owes his victory of last year’s presidential election to these social media platforms, ordered the restoration of the services.

 

The messaging app Telegram is displayed on a smartphone, July 15, 2017, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Telegram: A nightmare

For those in charge of monitoring the internet in Iran, the encrypted Telegram application is a constant headache and a nightmare.
“It’s not acceptable for people to use a monopolized social media,” Mahmoud Vaezi, Rouhani’s chief of staff, told reporters January 17, referring to only Telegram.

 

Founder and CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov delivers a keynote speech during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain Feb. 23, 2016.

According to Pavel Durov, the Russian CEO and co-founder of Telegram, the messaging application has an estimated 40 million active users in Iran. Iranian officials, however say the popular social messaging tool has 30 million users, which is still a considerable number of the country’s nearly 80 million population.
“The servers of any social media website or application that has more than 30 million Iranian members should not be outside the country,” Jalali, the head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, said in 2017.
“This is a national security necessity and not a political one,” Jalali claimed.

Telegram’s imminent blockage

Iranian authorities reportedly requested Durov to transfer its servers to Iran. When the company declined, prosecutors in Tehran filed a case against the company, alleging that the application provided terror groups like the Islamic State a platform for communication.
U.K.-based social media analyst Mohammad Ali Khorassani said it is just a matter of time before the government blocks Telegram.
The “Telegram app, which is the most used app among Iranians, is the No. 1 target of this new blockage,” Khorassani said.
The government is also pushing alternative applications, developed by Iranians, in an effort to discourage people from using the encrypted Telegram.
Last month, the official account of Iran’s Supreme Leader on Telegram announced the launch of an account for iGap and Soroush, which are applications similar to Telegram in function but that are controlled by the government.
In its latest report, the London-based Small Media Foundation, which monitors violations of the free flow of information, interpreted the move as a possible sign of a coming ban on Telegram in Iran.

Iran: Flogging sentence for a young Kurdish female university student

National Council of Resistance of Iran

The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran condemns the flogging sentence issued for a young Kurdish female student and calls on the nation’s women and youths to protest against such criminal verdicts.
The NCRI Women’s Committee urges international human rights and women’s rights organizations to undertake effective measures to stop such cruel and inhuman punishments.
On December 7, the Student Day in Iran, the clerical regime’s court in Saqqez, Iranian Kurdistan, sentenced Zamaneh Zivi to cash fine and 50 lashes of the whip on the charge of “disruption of public order.” She is a senior student of law at Payam Noor University of Saqqez in Kurdistan.
The Iranian regime’s resort to such an inhuman punishment for a girl student only indicates its fear of rebellions by the Iranian people, particularly the students and youths. It also reveals the true nature of Rouhani, the mullahs’ president who pretends to be a moderate.

The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Iran: Student protests against the Iran regime on the occasion of the student day

National Council of Resistance of Iran

The past days, various universities in the country were the scene of student protests against the Iranian regime on the occasion of the Student Day. The anti-student regime announce Thursday December 7 as a holiday in order to prevent the spread of student protests.
Students at the Abadan University of Oil Industry, on Thursday, December 7, went on hunger strike in protest of government officials' failure to respond to students' demands and protests.
On Dec. 5, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, the Melli University (Beheshti), and the University of Qom and Neyshabur witnessed student protest gatherings with the slogans of 'free political prisoners'.
In the Ferdowsi Hall of the University of Tehran, students disrupted the speech of a regime agent with the slogans 'University is not a Garrison', 'University is Prison, prisons are garrisons', .... At the University of Qom, the students left the hall during a speech by a member of the regime's parliament and did not allow the holding and continuation of the meeting.
Students at the University of Zanjan also celebrated the Student Day by setting up a photo exhibition of student activities against the regime along with slogans such as 'Student should not be in prison, university is not garrison'. In Urumia, students also chanted slogans in their gathering against gender discrimination, charging tuition fee by public universities and the poverty of students.
On Monday morning, December 5, students from the universities of Tehran, Allameh Tabataba'i and Kharazmi (Teacher Training) and the Melli University gathered and protested while chanting:  'Student dies, does not accept humiliation', “gender discrimination is condemned ','no to gender discrimination ' and ' from Babol to Abadan, Repression of students',' girls' dormitories are prisons', 'free education is our absolute right'.
They also protested against widespread corruption and poverty and unemployment and its damaging byproducts by chanting slogans 'Both Parliament and Government, Control Room of Plunder', 'Housing, Job and Treatment, and Free Education are demands of the toilers', “Forced labor at the university, unemployment when graduated '.
Students at Tehran University portrayed a corner of the crackdown, arrests and torture, and execution of students by performing a show. The regime's intelligence agents at the university (Harassat) attacked the rally and arrested one of the students. Students chanted slogans in protest to his arrest unanimously: 'University is not garrison, detained student must be freed'.
Students at the Sistan and Baluchestan University in Zahedan also protested in their protest gathering on December 2 against the presence of Rouhani in that university for the occasion of Student Day. They chanted 'Student dies, does not accept humiliation', 'Imprisoned Students should be released'.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran