Washington Post reported from Tehran: Hundreds of students at two Iranian universities have mounted protests in recent days to decry the expulsion of student activists and call for the resignation of a government-appointed campus president.
’The students are against the banning of their friends,’ said Rashid, a 25-year-old graduate student in Tehran who refused to give his family name out of fear he would be arrested. He said he was recently expelled from Allameh Tabatabai and later beaten by security guards when he tried to visit the university.
Hundreds of students have also been demonstrating at the main university in Shiraz for more than a week, demanding that the chancellor, Mohammad Hadi Sadeghi, step down. The university head, a former Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, was put in charge after Ahmadinejad in 2006 instigated a nationwide purge of university professors and chancellors considered too liberal or secular.
The students, who also call for better food and housing, say Sadeghi was appointed without the consultation of faculty members. Student leaders say other protests have taken place recently in the cities of Kerman, Esfahan and Shahrud.
’There has been a wave of threats by the university security forces and the intelligence ministry against both students and their families by telephone,’ a demonstrator in Shiraz said in a phone interview. She also asked not to be named out of fear of arrest, and said that security forces have tried to intervene with force but that the protests in Shiraz were continuing.
During the interview, slogans could be heard. ’We are fighters, men and women,’ students shouted. ’Fight us and we will fight.’ Clips of their protests have been posted on the YouTube Web site.