Abbas Hakimzadeh is a member of the central council of Amir Kabir University’s Islamic Student Association. In his exclusive interview with Rooz, he talks about the student gathering on Saturday in which students requested that the Minister of Science visit the institution’s classrooms. Hakimzadeh is a student who is banned from entering the campus and he speaks of the pressures that are exerted on students by government officials.

Rooz (R): What were the reasons for organizing the gathering on Saturday?
Abbas Hakimzadeh (AH): To protest the restrictions imposed on students during the recent months, especially students at Amir Kabir University.

R: Are these restrictions new?
AH: Restrictions on students have existed for a long time, even during the reform period (a reference to the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, 1997-2005). But they have multiplied over the recent few months.

R: What are they?
AH: The list is long. When a student publication recently published the items, it was immediately banned by university authorities, and the managing editor was punished by being deprived attendance for one school term. So the Student Islamic Association is now trying to publish it in one of the major newspapers. Leading student activists at Amir Kabir have been bugged by officials who inform university authorities of what they learn. University authorities have actually confirmed this type of surveillance and bugging. They even go further and threaten the family members of these students, informing them in detail what the students did the same or previous day. They have threatened that the students would be expelled or even arrested. Families who hear these stories are frightened and some believe that their children are engaged in armed guerrilla activities against the state, which is not the case at all.

R: You also had other gatherings in previous weeks. Are these demonstrations part of the same movement or for specific developments that take place?
AH: Obviously they are all against the restrictions that are being imposed on student life. There is usually no pre-planning and the gatherings take place impromptu.

R: What happened to the night gathering?
AH: Because the Minister of Science teaches a class at Amir Kabir this semester, students are eager to see him and communicate their problems to him. But since he is always surrounded with his body guards, no one gets a chance to actually talk to him. On Saturday, however, at the invitation of the Committee for the Defense of the Right to Education belonging to the Islamic Association, 50 students decided to stage a sit-in in front of his class. They did it and held placards that demonstrated some of the issues they opposed and the restrictions that existed in their academic and student lives. When the minister came out and saw the gathering, he ignored them and instead of addressing them, quickly left the scene and the campus. This led the students to chant anti government slogans and calls.

R: How does the student organization plan to follow up on its demands?
AH: As representatives of 2,000 students, we feel we must follow the problems of the students. So despite the views of the imposed selected administrators of the school and the hardline government, we are determined to follow up the issues more actively than in the past. And we will use every opportunity and every listening ear for this purpose.

R: The activities of the student body were ruled illegal. Where has that gone?
AH: In the talks that the student organization had with the president of the university, he had promised to set up a special committee comprising of faculty members and university authorities to look into the problems. After the passage of a few weeks, the student organization came to the conclusion that the meetings were in fact simply wasting time and that no results would come out of the talks. The legitimacy of the student organization comes from the students, and so we do not need any approval from university authorities.

R: What was the purpose of the authorities in wasting your time, and did they have a plan in mind?
AH: The president of the university had asked the student body to stop its activities until the committee ended its deliberations. The purpose in this request was to defame the students during the period when there were no student activities. They wanted to discredit the student leaders by claiming that the students had yielded to the demands of the officials and thus compromised. We really do not need university authorities, and it is them who need the student organization if they wish to run this institution in a better and more responsive way. We have also filed legal suits against the illegal activities of university administrators.

R: What do you mean you do not need their approval?
AH: According to the regulations of the university and the Ministry of Science, Islamic Associations are free in their activities so long as they do not contradict the tenets of Islam, and the university has a duty to cooperate with them. In addition to the regulations and laws, there is another source for the life of the student body and that is the vote and will of people. Student organizations pay special attention to their student base.

R: Under the current difficult student conditions, do you believe students will succeed?
AH: Since its inception over 40 years ago, the student movement has had its ups and downs. It has learned lessons from its own actions. Under the current circumstances, I believe that if students do not loose hope and have conviction that things will eventually brighten up in the end, they will pass these hard days imposed by hardliners and come out proud and successful.

R: Do they only have hope?
AH: Under the current conditions when every section of society suffers from hopelessness, having faith and hope is critical, as this leads to action. Look at how during the last year the government has driven, like a bulldozer, to crush civil organization and ignores the wishes of people, those forces that have not lost hope continue to hold this flame of action and faith high. Furthermore, in the years when there were no real political organizations in the country, student and their organizations openly criticized the actions of the government. It thus succeeded in maintaining some freedoms on campuses. It has also acted like a watchdog over civil institutions. You must look the success or failure of an institution in the context of possible conditions. And in this light, the student movement has been successful and active.