Mansour Saberi

The recent unrest at the Tehran University's dormitories was an excuse to speak to Farid ‎Hashemi, the former spokesperson of the Pro-Democracy Society at the university. Below is an ‎excerpt of this interview. ‎

Rooz (R): How do you analyze the recent unrest at Tehran University, which turned violent after ‎police intervened?‎

Farid Hashemi (FH): On the surface, students were demanding things like better food service in ‎dormitories, better living conditions, better service, the release of all student detainees and an ‎end to the summoning of students to disciplinary committees. However, as time goes by and ‎protests get louder, more serious demands are brought up, and this happened during the latest ‎unrest at the university. The initial gathering was to protests low food quality but rapidly turned ‎into a radical political protests, when students began chanting for observation of human rights, ‎ethnic and minority rights, and called for a code of student rights. ‎

‎(R): Reports pointed to violent clashes between students and police officers. How did that take ‎place?‎

‎(FH): What was interesting was that university directors implicitly recognized the legitimacy of ‎student demands if they are limited to demands for better food service, etc. They spoke in a way ‎which shows that they meant to say something like this: only legitimate protest is class protest, ‎and that will be tolerated as long as it is not too serious, but it will not be tolerated if it turns into ‎a political protest. ‎

‎(R): How do you interpret the decision to attack students and injure some?‎

‎(FH): With such actions they reduce the number of activists and scare the rest of the student ‎body away from the remaining few activists. Protests that took place last spring led to the ‎summoning of at least 80 students to disciplinary committees, 30 of which received heavy ‎sentences. Eight students were barred from the university for two semesters and some are on the ‎verge of being kicked out. I was one. I was never afraid to pay the price of my actions but I now ‎believe that the price must be productive. In essence, as a segment of the student movement in ‎Iran, we want to move in a positive direction that has benefits not in a direction that only has cost ‎and reduces the number of activists every day. ‎

‎(R): What is, in your opinion, the student movement's first priority right now?‎

‎(FH): Perhaps it is not right for anyone to prescribe a solution right now. I think that students ‎and all activists in social movements must immediately form discussion and research groups. ‎They can share with one another the results of their research, perhaps in a conference, out of ‎which can finally a committee emerge than can provide some useful solutions to problems we ‎are dealing with. One of our duties right now is perhaps to establish goals. I think that we are ‎losing time. Students must start as soon as possible. Their start can become a starting point for ‎all social movements. ‎