Dear Friends,
Below is a letter from students in Iran, regarding the arrest of students before, during and after the demonstrations of “Students' Day”. They are currently being held in solitary confinement and are subject to intense interrogation, including torture. They need our support! Please demand their immediate release by sending letters to Iranian officials.
05 December 2007
The Complete Report of the Arrests in the Latter Days and the Students' Day Demonstration
Yesterday the demonstration of the "Students' Day" was held in the University of Tehran, by the Radical Leftist students of Iran. Some days before the demonstration, many left activists were threatened by the government, and were urged in order not to dispose this demonstration. Since the Iranian students have been holding this program for about 54 years (honoring 3 martyr comrades killed by the former regime in the engineering faculty of the University of Tehran for protesting against Nixon's trip to Iran) In the past year, all the social movements in Iran--including the workers’, women’s and students’ movements--have been repressed by the regime, and because of this, the students decided to hold the demonstration by any means possible.
On Saturday December 2nd, 2007, while the students were preparing for the demonstration, the government was preparing to suppress them. The arrests started on Saturday at 9 AM when Mehdi Gerailoo (student of geophysics) and Nader Ahsani were kidnapped from their respective homes by the security forces and were taken to an unknown location. The same afternoon, two of the Sociology Faculty of the University of Tehran, Victoria Jamshidi and Anoosheh Azadbar"were arrested at their homes without any explanation. The arrests continued until December 4 at 2 PM and by this time almost 26 students from different universities had been arrested. The complete list of arrests is follows the conclusion of this letter.
But the demonstration was held as planned by the Radical Leftist students exactly on time, at 12 PM Tuesday, at the University of Tehran in front of the Engineering Faculty. The demonstration started with the singing of revolutionary songs by the students. Many students carried posters and slogans defining their wants and aims on them such as "The University Is Not Garrison" , "Liberty of Women Is Liberty of the Society" , "NO WAR" , "Hands Off the People of Iran", "Free the Political Prisoners" , "There IS an Alternative" , "Free Our Classmates" , "The Students Movement Allied with the Workers and Women movements", "We Want Independent Unions" and "FREEDOM EQUALITY".
Then some of the radical left students made speeches: Behzad Bagheri (student of Archeology) made speech about the pressures in the past year and about the arrested students.
Bita Samimizad (student of physics) made a speech against the war which may happen in Iran and about the repression of the women’s and workers’ movements in the past year.
Bijan Sabbagh (student of chemical engineering from University of Mazandaran) delivered a speech about the arrested students in the University of Mazandaran, Tehran, and Ahvaz and others.
Kaveh Abbasian (student of cinema), the representative of the students who were not allowed to continue their studies by the government, talked about these students and the problems they faced, and about how he himself was almost arrested when he tried to come to Tehran for the demonstration. He reminded the government that a movement which is supported by society cannot be ruined by the system.
Then Roozbeh Safshekan read the declaration of the Radical Leftist students. He was then arrested IN THE UNIVERSITY by security forces exactly after the demonstration.
Peyman Piran (the ex-political prisoner), Ali Ajami (student of law) and Kamran Akhshi (student of political sciences) and some other students talked about different political and social matters.
The demonstration continued in front of the main gate of the university. The students sang revolutionary songs and yelled out their wants so everyone in the street could hear: "Free the Imprisoned Students", "I'll Kill Them Who Killed my Brother", "Taking Part in Elections Is a Betrayal", "Down with the Dictator", "We Don't Want Savage Government and Police", "Ahmadinejad! Pinochet! Iran's not going to Be Chile"... The crowd came back to the faculty of Law and Political Sciences and ended the demonstration. Half an hour later, the security forces started to arrest the students who were active during the demonstration (especially the speech-makers). They first caught Roozbeh Safshekan who read the declaration of the Radical Leftist students and his wife, "Mina" (His wife was released some hours later). The security forces followed students and tried to arrest Kaveh Abbasian and Bijan Sabbagh in front of the Engineering Faculty. But they were not successful because the other students had surrounded them so that Kaveh and Bijan could escape. By 7 PM, all the activists had changed their appearances and the clothing and left the university. All of the remaining activists are now in hiding. The government still seeks to arrest them.
(click here to view a complete list of arrested students)
No matter how many they arrest or what ever they do to us, our movement will go ahead.
Long live FREEDOM and EQUALITY
Thanks to our friend “B.” for sharing this information.
