According to reports on 17 September 2011, Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolution Court has sentenced Mr. Ali Akbar Mohammadzadeh, a 22-year-old student activist, to 6 years of imprisonment on charges of propaganda against the state, assembly and collusion against the state security and disruption of public order. His mother told the BBC Persian Service on 17 September that her son, “an elite student”, had been tortured in pre-trial detention and pointed out that the judge had not produced any specific evidence to substantiate the charges. Mr. Mohammadzadeh, a student of Mechanical Engineering and secretary of the Islamic Society of Students at the prestigious Sharif University of Technology, was detained on 15 February 2011 in Tehran, a day after massive street protests. He spent 54 days in solitary confinement and was subjected to great pressure to incriminate himself in coerced ’confessions’. Mr. Mohammazadeh’s principal lawyer was kept away from the court. He is still detained in Evin Prison and even though the court of first instance has issued its sentence and he has appealed it.
Another student of distinguished academic achievements, Mr. Omid Kokabi, 29 years old, who was detained on 30 January 2011 at Tehran Airport before his journey back to the US, is still in pre-trial detention in Evin Prison of Tehran after 8 months. He is a post-doctorate student of Nuclear Physics in Texas University in the US, who previously obtained his B.Sc. Degree from the Sharif University of Technology in Iran and his Ph.D. from Spain, and has published seven articles and specialised journals and presented them at 16 Academic conferences. He has reportedly not been involved in any political activities, but has been accused of acting against national security through contacts with a ’hostile country’ and illegitimate earnings from his scholarship in the US. Mr. Kokabi, who has spent 36 days in solitary confinement, wrote in a letter to the head of the Judiciary in July 2011 that he had accepted the accusations after being frightened and forced to make false confessions. Mr. Kokabi is a member of the Turkmen ethnic minority and Sunni religious minority.
Scores of student activists are currently perishing in prisons nationwide. The extent of the student movement’s opposition to the regime and the regime’s heavy-handed crackdown of the movement have made it a difficult task to record all the details. Therefore, the following are only a handful of hundreds of students, who are either in pre-trial detention or have been sentenced to long term imprisonments.
– Bahareh Hedayat, a female student and women’s rights activist, has been serving a 9.5-year imprisonment since 31 December 2009 on charges of insulting the leader and the president, propaganda against the system and acting against the national security.
– Majid Tavakkoli, another student activist, who had been detained several times in the past few years, has been serving an 8.5-year imprisonment since 16 December 2009 on charges of insulting the leader and the president, participation in illegal assemblies, and propaganda against the system.
– Farzad Madadzadeh and Shabnam Madadzadeh (his sister) were detained on 21 February 2009, months before the Presidential Election, and charged with moharebeh (fighting God) and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment each to be served in internal exile. Farzad Madadzadeh is serving his sentence in the remote Rajaishahr Prison but Shabnam Madadzadeh is currently in Evin Prison.
– Zia Nabavi, a member of the Council to Defend the Right to Education, was arrested on 14 June 2009 and after long detention and torture was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in internal exile on charge of ‘fighting God.’ He is a graduate of Chemical Engineering who was banned from studying for MA in Sociology in 2008. He is now serving his imprisonment in the southern province of Khuzestan.
– Ms. Atefeh Nabavi (Zia Nabavi’s cousin), a graduate of Metallurgy Engineering who was banned from continuing her Master studies, was arrested on 14 June 2009 and sentenced to four years imprisonment on charge of ‘fighting God’ which she is currently serving in Evin Prison, Tehran.
– Others serving long term prison sentences include: Yasser Goli (Kurdish student; 15 years); Hamed Roohinejad (11 years); Milad Assadi (7 years); Majid Dari (6 years in a remote prison in Khuzestan); Hassan Assadi Zaydabadi (5 years); Alireza Ashuri (5 years); Pooya Qorbani (6 years); Mehdi Khodaei (4 years); Ali Ajami (4 years in the remote Rajaishahr Prison);Mahdieh Golroo (female; 3 years and 4 months).
Background Information
The Iranian students and student organisations have always been at the forefront of protests against dictatorship and despotism both under the former regime of the Shah and during the past more than three decades since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Consequently, they have suffered the largest number of victims both in terms of casualties and prisoners of conscience.
Plain-clothed security agents, members of the Special Squads of the Police and Special Squads of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps brutally attacked some university dormitories and ransacked them in Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, in the aftermath of the June 2009 Presidential Election, as a result of which five students were killed in Tehran, two in Isfahan and two in Shiraz. In Tehran Dormitory, 100 students were arrested. However, rather than investigating the attacks and killings, military courts tried about 40 of them who had lodged complaints with the judiciary and sentenced them to punishments ranging from financial penalties, lashing and prison sentences from 3 to 10 months, in May 2011. Since then, several students have lost their lives in the protest demonstrations or in custody. Nationwide, hundreds of students have been expelled from the universities and banned from continuing their studies.
Independent student groups and student activists have been facing severe persecution and crackdown, especially since the June 2009 Presidential Election. The ‘Unity Consolidation Office’ (Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat), a union of Islamic Students Societies of Universities, has especially been targeted.