Student Protests in Iran: From Official Indifference to Beatings of Students

The ongoing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran and the approaching examination season have confronted education officials with a new challenge: nationwide gatherings of students protesting the in-person administration of final exams in grades 9 and 12.

Student protests spread across more than 20 cities in the country; protests that in some cities encountered brutal suppression by security and police forces. The inhumane and police-like treatment of students who were merely voicing their protests and concerns to the education system in these gatherings represents a clear manifestation of the government’s inability to accept criticism in various executive branches, such as the educational system in the country. On the other hand, the response of police and military authorities to these protests demonstrates the government’s insistence on portraying any form of civil protest as a “security” issue.

What Do Students Want in Their Protest Gatherings?

The protest of grades 9 and 12 students against the Ministry of Education’s decision to hold in-person final exams amid the intensifying spread of COVID-19 in most cities across the country. A decision that the Ministry of Education insists on implementing; Mohsen Haji Mirzaei, the Minister of Education, in his latest statement regarding exam administration, claimed that holding in-person exams for grades 9 and 12 is “for the students’ own benefit” because “these two grades’ exams are influential in students’ future careers and education, and if held remotely there is a risk of violating their rights”.

Nevertheless, students in their gatherings, which lasted for approximately one week from Monday, Ordibehesht 13 until Monday, Ordibehesht 20, 1400, voiced their protest against the education officials’ insistence by chanting slogans such as: “Can’t take in-person exams with corona” and “We don’t want in-person exams, we don’t want them.”

These protests took place in more than 20 cities across the country including Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz, Shahrekord, Broujerd, Khorramabad, Shiraz, Qazvin, Zanjan, Semnan, Ahvaz, Yazd, Birjand, Ardabil, Fooladshahr, Dezful, Izeh, Masjed Soleiman, and others, with students gathering in front of education ministry buildings in their respective cities.

Students’ protests against holding exams during the coronavirus pandemic in most regions of Iran come at a time when official statistics from Iran’s Ministry of Health indicate a daily increase in the number of coronavirus cases and rising deaths from the virus. According to the latest statistics, the total number of COVID-19 patients in Iran has reached more than 2.7 million, and the total death toll from the disease has been reported at more than 76,000. Currently, 46 cities in the country are in red status regarding the severity of coronavirus spread, 263 cities are in orange status, and 139 cities are in yellow status.

The policies of Iran’s education officials during the coronavirus pandemic have been met with considerable criticism; unequal access of students across the country to the virtual education network “Shad,” increasingly difficult continuation of virtual education, and naturally rising dropout rates, as well as the increasingly evident educational discrimination among students in different regions of Iran, were among the consequences of these policies. Perhaps the most obvious destructive impact of these policies manifested itself in the tragic suicide of an 11-year-old student from Bushehr who decided to end his life due to his family’s inability to provide a tablet or smartphone to continue his education. Other reports emerged from some disadvantaged areas describing the suicides of other Iranian students due to their inability to continue their studies during the coronavirus period.

Recent student protests in Iran, in terms of the speed of their spread across different cities and their consecutive nature, can be an unprecedented portrayal of Iranian students’ efforts to uphold their rights. This is while the government is obligated to not only respond to the civil and legal demands of students during protest gatherings, which is recognized in Article 27 of the Constitution, but also to fully restore its legal duty regarding free education (Article 30 of the Constitution) and in conducting exams, make students’ health rights the central axis of its decisions; because education and the right to health and public hygiene are related and complementary issues.

What Is the Government’s Response to Student Protests?

During widespread student protests in various Iranian cities, scattered reports emerged of harsh police and security force treatment of students; according to some of these reports, security forces resorted to force in dealing with most of these gatherings and beat students.

On Sunday, Ordibehesht 19, the Association of Iranian Teachers, through the release of a statement, strongly condemned the “violent treatment by security forces and plainclothes officers” in student gatherings and called for the identification and compensation of affected students and the provision of medical services to them. In part of this statement, it was emphasized that security forces used pepper spray and batons in dealing with student gatherings and also committed acts that were “astonishing and far from humane and civil behavior” by creating fear and threatening to arrest students.

The shock of activists and cultural and professional associations of teachers in various Iranian cities at the naked violence of security forces in dealing with student protests is evident in many statements from these independent associations; the Northern Khorasan Teachers’ Professional Association stated in part of its statement: “What right do security forces have to treat the nation’s young people, who are at the peak of pride and emotion, in such an unconstrained and violent manner?”

Despite harsh reactions from several teachers’ professional associations in various Iranian cities and many civil rights activists in Iran and social media users to the violent treatment of security forces toward students, forces close to the government are attempting to impose their narrative of these protests; a narrative through which these protests quickly become transformed into protests that allegedly “threaten national security” and thus also justify harsh treatment by security and police forces against the protesters.

The Future of Student Protests in Iran

In previous years, most professional and group protests in the field of education in the country have been related to protests by teachers and educational staff; protests that have a long history in the civil and political struggles of Iranian activists. Nevertheless, in recent years there has been little news of student protest gatherings.

The spread and consecutive nature of student protests across the country revealed a new and perhaps surprising form for decision-making and policymaking officials in the country regarding this generation’s confrontation with its own problems. A point that can be observed in the analysis of some decision-making officials at the head of the system; some time ago, the weekly Sobh-e Sadegh, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Office of the Supreme Leader, warned in an article about the importance of Iran’s Generation Z (those born in the 1980s and 1990s) in Iran’s political and social future. In part of this article, referring to the fact that “unlike previous generations, this generation is inherently inclined to protest against the current situation,” it was emphasized that “governing this generation will not be as easy as previous generations”.

It seems that the harsh security treatment of student protests in Iran is a result of this very concern by some officials about a new generation, many of whom are today’s students in the country.

Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign