On December 7, students of Najaf-abad University commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of Student Day along with students in other universities in the country. Their ceremony was attacked by Basij forces which led to a clash between students and Basij. This clash which traversed university premises led to the arrest of over 10 students.
Similarly, at Ilam University, students assembled shouting slogan of “student dies, but does not submit to humiliation”. Statements against the regime were also distributed in the university.
Leaders of the clerical regime had already expressed concerns and issued warnings to their suppressive forces putting them on alert against protest moves by students prior to Student Day to thwart expansion of these protests.
Kayhan daily, affiliated with Khamenei, apprehensive of student protests, had written: “We should see whether they want to turn the university into war-room again this year.” Kamran Daneshjoo, regime’s former Minister of Education, said: “Sedition (i.e. protest movement) has the capacity to rebuild itself inside the universities and has the capacity to label Basij and Hezbollah students… as extremist and try them. We should not allow elements of sedition to infiltrate the universities at any cost; otherwise we shall regret it.” (ISNA state news agency – December 6)
Mullah Alam al-Hoda, Khamenei’s representative in Mashhad, said: “Is it possible to forget the 2009 sedition and the issues that followed? And if we forget this sedition, a ground for still worse seditions will be created. The 2009 sedition, similar to actions (of PMOI) has been registered in our minds as a current and a dark spot.”
Javan daily, affiliated with regime’s anti-popular Basij, in an article titled “Sedition wants to place university against the system”, wrote: “Returning ‘starred’ students who are active in sedition to university’s serene and scientific atmosphere” and “revival of extremist student movements that were effective in 1999 and 2009 seditions” targets the rebuilding of the project of system’s permutation. (Javan daily – December 7, 2013)
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 8, 2013
