Hans-Gert Poettering said that the European Parliament strongly supports the call for the immediate release of students and "urges the Iranian authorities to swiftly provide adequate information to their families and lawyers about their case."
On December 8 and in the early morning hours of December 9, the State Security Forces (SSF) and agents of Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) arrested a number of students from various universities in Tehran, in an attempt to prevent a large student gathering in Tehran University to mark the Student Day in Iran.
On December 9, despite special suppressive measures by the Iranian regime’s SSF and agents of Ministry of Intelligence, more than 3,000 Tehran university students in Iran staged an anti-government demonstration.
The statement from Hans-Gert Poettering also condemned the gruesome hanging of Makwan Mouloudzadeh for an alleged crime committed when he was 13.
Mouloudzadeh was executed on December 4 for a "moral" offence. He would have been 13 at the time of the alleged crimes; his hanging was forbidden by the mullahs’ standards which consider males under 15 as minors and therefore not punishable by law.