Iran's universities under spotlight as protests persist

In videos circulating on social media, male and female students students on Iranian university campuses are seen eating together, often outside the gender-segregated dining halls that were closed after students tore down the walls dividing men and women.

Eating together in front of the closed cafeterias is considered act of resistance. The videos are an act of protest and solidarity with anti-government demonstrations that have been going on for months in Iran.

In many videos, protesters holding placards also draw attention to fellow students who have been arrested. According to media reports, about 300 students have been detained by authorities .

The protesters appear not to be intimidated by the government's clampdown on the demonstrations. 

"A student may die but will not accept humiliation," they chanted at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, in an online video verified by AFP.

The university students also show solidarity with Iranian schoolchildren, who are active in the protests and, as a result, paying a price.

Schoolgirls at the Shahid Sadr Girls' Vocational School in Tehran, for instance, were recently beaten for taking part in the demonstrations, according to activists.

"Schoolgirls from Sadr High School in Tehran were attacked, strip-searched and beaten," the activist group 1500tasvir reported.

Iran's Education Ministry has denied reports that a female student was killed in the confrontation, according to the ISNA news agency. 

Khomeini's mistrust of universities

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iranian students have faced pressure from the Muslim clergy. 

When the Shah was overthrown, some sections of students, motivated by either Islamism or socialism, initially stood by the revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. 

But the two sides became estranged immediately after the new Islamic regime was established.

Students bore witness to how classmates who disagreed with the new leaders were kidnapped or killed by the regime's security forces. The mistrust between the two sides ran so high that the Revolutionary Council shut down all of the nation's universities in June 1980.

The decision was in line with Khomeini's distrust of students and professors. "We are not afraid of military attacks," he said. "We are afraid of colonial universities."

At the time, the regime viewed universities as the home of the "people's mujahedeen," which was the main source of opposition to the leadership.

Khomeini's supporters "removed thousands of books with 'anti-Islamic tendencies' from libraries and expelled thousands of teachers and professors from their posts labeling them 'lackeys of Western ideology,'" journalist Gerhard Schweizer wrote in his book "Understanding Iran."

Leading universities remained closed for years.

'Nothing more than a cultural revolution'

Khomeini's call had severe consequences, Mehdi Jafari Gorzini, an Iranian political analyst living in exile, told DW.

"Thousands of students were forcibly de-registered," Jafari Gorzini said. "Some fled abroad, while others were arrested and executed. Khomeini sought nothing more than a kind of 'cleansing' of the universities. In essence, this was nothing more than a cultural revolution."

Since their reopening, Iranian universities have been consistently expanded and modernized. The result is that they now have more than 4 million students enrolled, according to a study by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Modernization is also reflected in gender equality, with the proportion of female students in Iranian universities currently exceeding 50%.

According to DAAD, the Iranian university system also focuses on quality assurance and enhancement. Many Iranian scientists who were educated abroad, especially in the West, have also contributed to this development.

But, with the arrival of liberal ideas, the universities once again became centers of opposition. This was evident, for example, in July 1999.

At that time, the government decided to close the reform-oriented newspaper Salam. Students at Tehran University took to the streets in protest. Security forces then raided the dormitories on campus. At least one student was killed and hundreds were injured.

The protests soon morphed into a broader movement demanding accountability from the government. The memory of the security forces' brutality at the time is still fresh in the student milieu today, Jafari Gorzini said.

Liberal leanings and greater awareness

The students can still count on the liberal leanings of many professors. At the end of September, about 70 professors from Tehran University published an open letter to the government in the newspaper Etemad.

In it, they clearly described the political and economic grievances of the country and demanded the release of all demonstrators.

In the days that followed, the faculty of other universities formulated similar letters. However, this also widened the rift within the universities, as leadership roles within these institutions are held by confidants of the regime.

In addition to being well-educated, the students are also very familiar with life outside Iran's borders thanks to the new media, Jafari Gorzini said.

"Since the early 2000s at the latest, many young people, including students, have had their own blogs or webpages, and have used them to communicate with people in other countries," he said.

"This showed them how life is beyond the borders and at the same time gave them other concepts of life than the one spread by the regime," he added.

In addition, people have repeatedly tried to vote the system out of office, Jafari Gorzini said. "But that never worked, nor did attempts to initiate reforms. Even the youngest generation understood that."

They have been told by their parents the stories of failed attempts at reform, demonstrations and large protests, Jafari Gorzini said. "It is clear to this generation that everything so far has been in vain, that there can be no dialogue with the mullahs. Hence the radicalism we are experiencing right now."

This article was originally written in German.