Arash Motamed

With the launch of yet another round of arrests of students belonging to the leftist ‎Azadikhah va Barabari-talab group (pro-Freedom and Equality), the Islamic associations ‎of 37 universities across Iran issued a joint statement in which they listed the most recent ‎suppressive measures on the universities and called for an end to the pressure tactics and ‎limitations imposed on the student movement.‎

According to the student committee of the Gozareshgaran-e Hoghoogh-e Bashar group ‎‎(Human Rights Reporters), several student activists from Tehran University were arrested ‎last Monday and unconfirmed reports said transferred to ward 209 of Evin prison. The ‎committee announced the names of the students as: Morteza Eslahchi, Anahita Hosseini, ‎Soroosh Sabet, Mohamd Pour-Abdollahi, Sanaz Alahyari (sister of Medi Alahyari), Amin ‎Ghazai, Soroosh Dashtestani, and Bita Samimizadeh. It is reported that the actual number ‎of detainees is more than just these names, but there are no confirmed reports about other ‎names and individuals. According to the report, the families of these students have ‎announced that their “children have not returned home since yesterday and their cell ‎phones have been turned off.”‎

Family members of Amin Ghazai and Soroosh Dashtestani have confirmed the detention ‎of their children and added that security agents raided their houses and conducted ‎searches of their belongings. With these reports, the number of students who have been ‎arrested since December 7, 2007 (commemorated as Student Day in Iran) is about 40. ‎

In its statement, the pro-Freedom and Equality student group called on “all the Iranian ‎people to stand up against” the arrested students and called for their immediate release.‎

The arrest of new students and the call for their release comes at a time when the three ‎students from Polytechnic University continue to be behind bars despite their acquittal by ‎the court because security and prison officials have defied the release orders. Mohammad ‎Ali Dadkhah, the defense attorney for the acquitted students has called this defiance to be ‎unprecedented in Iran’s legal history.‎

But Alireza Jamshidi, the spokesperson for the country’s judiciary still talks of releasing ‎students and has even promised that “the discovery phase of the 11 detained students ‎shall be completed shortly and these students will be free on bail.” The parents of some ‎of the students arrested in connection with the December 7 events have said that they ‎have still not been contacted by their children or officials despite the passage of weeks ‎since their detention.‎

It is in view of these circumstances that the Islamic associations of 37 universities across ‎Iran have issued a joint statement which partly says, “The ink on the impartial judge’s ‎order in acquitting three Amir Kabir University students, Ehsan Mansuri, Majid Tavakoli ‎and Ahmad Ghasaban who had spent more than 8 months of pressure, torture and solitary ‎confinement, was still wet when the feelings of joy of thousands of freedom-loving ‎students was held at bay as revenge took over and dissenting students were again ‎condemned as the three students continued to remain in detention contrary to existing ‎rules and laws.” The statement calls for the immediate release of the students and the ‎implementation of justice for them. In a related news, now over 40 days have passed ‎since the arrest of Saeed Habibi, the former head of the Union of Islamic Associations ‎‎(Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat , also known as the Office for Student Solidarity), along with ‎‎30 other leftist student activists. ‎