With the arrest of Ali Azizi, a new round of student arrests has been completed. The ‎recent student protests have led to more arrests within Iran’s student community and ‎students rights activists that include Arman Sedaghati, Mazyar Samii, Pedram Rafati and ‎Behnam Sepehrmand, and a few more from Ahvaz University in the oil-rich province of ‎Khuzestan. Furthermore, the fate of student Massoumeh Mansuri too continues to be in ‎doldrums. ‎

It appears that the goal of the recent arrest of these students is to calm down the ‎protesting students movement and prevent the demonstrations from spreading to the ‎population at large. Ali Azizi’s arrest however does not fall into this category and he is ‎paying for his protests that span at least to a year in the Amir Kabir University Islamic ‎Association and the central council of Daftare Tahkim Vahdat student organization. ‎Initially he was to be among the students arrested on July 9, 2007, but managed to stay ‎out. Now with his intense activities in defending the three imprisoned students from ‎Polytechnic University, the security apparatus found the best excuse to return him to the ‎dungeons. This would remove him from the scene and also send a strong message to ‎Polytechnic University students. ‎

In view of recent events, it is possible that he will be accused of participating on unrest ‎that originates from outside the country. The student movement and protests in Iran have ‎remained the only active force openly confronting the security-military regime. Recent ‎imprisonments, expulsions and other bans have not weakened the student movement ‎opposing the government and calling for freedoms and the defense of their rights. In ‎addition to that, the movement has also echoed the voices in the country that have called ‎for the defense of human rights, and social and political freedoms.‎

The student movement continues to be at the forefront of the struggle against the hardline ‎and suppressive regime, which exposes the futility of the “iron fist” policies of the ‎administration. The state has tried different methods of confronting this movement, ‎including pinning them against the sacred beliefs of the ordinary folk in the streets, but ‎none has worked, and the students have remained popular and legitimate protestors in the ‎eyes of the people.‎

The manner in which the students from Ahvaz University have been treated is a carbon ‎copy of the treatment that students from Polytechnic University received. A group is ‎arrested and then charged with fake accusations of being consciously or naively in the ‎service of foreigners who wish to create unrest in the country’s universities with the aim ‎of overthrowing the Iranian regime through a peaceful velvet revolution. ‎

What is clear is that just as the goals of the strategists of the Polytechnic University ‎arrests did not yield the desired results to the security officials, the same efforts targeted ‎at the Ahvaz University students will not succeed either. ‎

As the security apparatus portrays that these protesting students are challenging the ‎sacred values and beliefs of the population, it is clear that what they are really concerned ‎about are the principles and foundations of the ruling circles, which the students ‎challenge. From a strictly religious view, any measures or calls by those in power to ‎spread the truth and deny the forbidden must begin with an honest criticism of the rulers. ‎And in view of the unpopular and unjust activities of the leadership of the regime, this ‎task of critiquing the leadership becomes even more important. ‎

A review of the policies of the state in confronting the students clearly demonstrates the ‎failure of the anti-human rights policies of the regime. And while the state’s assault and ‎crackdown on the student movement initially slows down the student pro-democracy ‎movement and hurts it, but in the long term, it only adds to its experience and maturity, ‎making its demands even more radical. This situation has led the security machinery to ‎even follow the students and abandon many of the red lines that it had initially set for the ‎students not to cross.‎

Detention and imprisonment are now obsolete tools in this battle. The final outcome of ‎any imprisonment is release from the dungeon and the re-entrance of the former prisoner ‎in the political battlefield. This time however, the activist is more mature and more ‎sophisticated, and consequently more effective.‎

It appears that the decision-makers of these strategies and tools too have come to realize ‎the bankruptcy of their methods. They are continuing the same old tricks however merely ‎out of desperation. The specter of a velvet revolution and the mobilization of the ‎disenchanted masses will continue to haunt the regime, even as it continues to suppress ‎the movement. ‎

As Iran’s crises with the international community intensifies, the state sees no alternative ‎but to create a domestic crisis so that the pro-democracy and opposition movement does ‎not acquire the opportunity to mobilize and organize itself even more. And should events ‎in Iran take the direction that would necessitate its leaders to once again drink the jar of ‎poison (as they did when they rescinded all claims to liberate Iraq and Palestine during ‎the 8-year war with Iraq), suppressing the student movement today is aimed to scare off ‎the opposition from exposing the claims of those inside the regime who are promoting the ‎nuclear rhetoric and military bluffs, who may also call for the prosecution of those who ‎will be responsible for withering the country’s national interests.‎

It is clear that those who have “removed the brakes from the moving train” (as president ‎Ahmadinejad once boasted about Iran’s nuclear policies and activities) are so intoxicated ‎with their own rhetoric and beliefs that they truly believe that they have a divine mission ‎to fulfill and that divine aids will help them sail through all odds and take them to ‎become the leading power in the world.‎

But what is also clear is that these pipe dreamers have no ears to tolerate any just ‎complaints and criticism, such as those coming from the students. And therefore, it is ‎natural that they exercise and practice prison-therapy against honest voices of the masses ‎and the brave who have called the king’s bluff by saying he is fully naked.‎

What these strategists miss is that the student movement is not rooted in specific students. ‎Behind every prominent student activist sit tens of other students who take up the banner ‎of freedom even if their forerunners are struck down.‎

The recent arrests and detentions of students only add to the already-dark record of the ‎state in its drives to suppress freedoms, within and without the academic institutions. And ‎they will certainly not deter students from standing up to what is right and what is just, ‎and end their calls for the respect of human rights and equality.‎