Sorena Kiani

‎"University, Liberty's Last Ground," read the largest placard at a student rally held to ‎commemorate Azar 16 [December 7], the Student's Day in Iran. ‎

The gathering began with 2 members of the Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat ["Office for Fostering ‎Student Unity"] in prison, and ended with only one member in prison. Minutes before the ‎gathering was set to end, the cell phone of one of Tahkim member's rang. On the other line was ‎Ali Nikoonesbati, a detained student who had been released minutes earlier. The news spread ‎mouth to mouth and created a wave of joy among students. Nevertheless, students were still in ‎rage from the continued detention of Ali Azizi, another of Tahkim's central committee members ‎and Ahmad Ghassaban, Majid Tavakoli, and Ehsan Mansouri, three students from the ‎Polytechnic University. More than 30 leftist students were also arrested last week in a gathering ‎to celebrate 16 Azar. Yeser Goli, Sabah Nasri and Hedayat Ghazali are also three detained ‎Kurdish students that are held in high-security detention facilities, uncharged. ‎

Many Kurdish students were in fact participating in the gathering. They were holding yellow ‎placards protesting human rights violations in Kurdistan. They were also carrying pictures of the ‎three detained Kurdish students and two Kurdish activists, Adnan Hasanpour and Hiva Boutimar, ‎who were earlier sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court. Kurdish student representatives ‎reiterated time and again that they are not separatists and that they respect Iran's territorial ‎integrity and national unity. However, they protested discrimination against Kurdish citizens and ‎attempts to destroy the Kurdish language and culture. Doostipour, a Kurdish student ‎representative, said, "We voice our demands in conformity with the International Declaration of ‎Human Rights. Our slogan is Iran for all Iranians." ‎

After the speeches, students began to march towards the university entrance. Students chanted ‎slogans for several minutes there and returned to the engineering campus. During the gathering ‎and for hours afterwards, security forces and anti-riot police surrounded the university campus. ‎

After the gathering news came that 5 students from the Allameh University had been arrested ‎while leaving the Tehran University campus. One of the detained students was identified as ‎Saeed Rahmani. No more information has been released about the condition of these detained ‎students until now. ‎

Overall, the student gathering on the Student's Day enjoyed a good turnout. According to many ‎students, this gathering was among the largest held in the past five years, when thousands of ‎students turned up to protest Hashem Aghajari's death sentence. ‎