Students defy Iran’s security forces with university protests

Iranian regime forces clashed for a second day with students at one of Tehran’s leading universities yesterday amid a rising death toll as protests rage across the country.

Reports and videos on social media showed Sharif University besieged by security forces, while dozens of students appeared to be trapped in the underground car park.

In one video security forces on motorbikes appear to take one female student away and shoot directly at the person filming from a passing car. The window cracks before the video goes black. In another, protesters are seen shouting “free the university students” in front of the university.

Other images posted online show students trying to force open the gates of Isfahan University, south of the capital, after classes were cancelled and moved online.

It came as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, spoke for the first time since the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the state morality police, saying it was “a bitter incident”.

However, he was quick to blame his main foes, the US and Israel, for the protests set off by the 22-year-old’s death, saying that the “riots” were planned by foreign entities.

US president Joe Biden has vowed a swift response to the “intensifying violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in Iran”.

“This week, the United States will be imposing further costs on perpetrators of violence against peaceful protesters. We will continue holding Iranian officials accountable and supporting the rights of Iranians to protest freely,” Biden said in a statement last night.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to verify reports coming out of Iran as the government has widely blocked the country’s internet connection.

Videos, which could not immediately be verified, showed plain-clothed police officers rounding up students and putting them into vans. Others showed security forces scattering the students by firing tear gas, and in some the sound of what appeared to be gunshots could be heard in the distance.

Iranian state media said that the science minister had visited the Sharif campus to check on the situation after “reports of clashes”. According to the Iran International news channel, based in London, the minister warned the students: “You can’t just say whatever you want and not pay the price for it.”

The protests have unified Iran, bridging social, ethnic and religious divides, and presenting the biggest threat to the Islamic regime in years. Calls to overthrow the government have grown in line with the protests.

Some members of Iran’s military are said to have refused to co-operate with the regime’s crackdown. In several videos that could not be immediately verified, commanders warned the police and the revolutionary guards that their units would not join in the repression of the protests. At least one air force commander who released a video is believed to have been arrested.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker warned that the protests could destabilise the country. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, one of the few politicians who sometimes meets Khamenei, told lawmakers that the demonstrations in Iran were not like previous protests that have called for reform. Instead, they aimed to topple the government, he said.

“I ask all who have any [reasons to] protest not to allow their protest to turn into destabilising and toppling [of institutions],” he added.

The speaker promised to “amend the structures and methods of the morality police” to prevent a repeat of Amini’s fate. Her death in police custody set off the protests after she was arrested for incorrectly wearing the mandatory hijab. Women have continued to burn their headscarves in solidarity.

Death tolls vary because of the difficulty in getting reliable information, but one NGO, Iran Human Rights, said 133 people had been killed in the protests. It is not the first time that Iranian authorities have sought to portray protests as an act of foreign interference.

Over the weekend Iran fired another round of artillery and launched drone strikes at the exiled Iranian opposition party Komala in Iraqi Kurdistan, days after a bombing campaign in the area killed 14. Tehran accuses Komala and the leftist armed opposition group KDP of promoting the unrest.