Human Rights Watch: The Preferred Response of Iranian Officials to Students is 'Repression'

Human Rights Watch has criticized the sentences issued for students who were arrested during the nationwide protests in December, stating: Iranian officials have returned to their preferred response, which is the repression of peaceful protests, instead of creating a safe environment for student activities. According to a statement from Human Rights Watch published on Saturday, July 30, the issuance of prison sentences for students and the imposition of restrictions on peaceful student activities in Iran have intensified. As of last week, at least 8 students from universities in Tehran and Tabriz have been sentenced to up to eight years in prison, and some other students have been banned from any political and media activities and even from participating in social media for two years. According to Human Rights Watch, the Iranian judiciary has recently sentenced Leila Hassan-Zadeh and Sina Rabiei from Tehran University to 6 and 1 year in prison and 2 years of travel ban, respectively. The report also states that Mohsen Haqshenas, a student at Tehran University, has been sentenced to two years in prison; Sina Darvish-Imran and Ali Mozaffari from Tehran University have each received an 8-year prison sentence and a 2-year travel ban; Roya Saghiri from Tabriz University has received a final sentence of 23 months in prison; Ali Kamrani and Ali Qadiri, both from Tabriz University, have each been sentenced to 6 months in prison; and Fereshteh Toosi from Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. Most of these student activists were arrested during the nationwide protests last December. According to Parvaneh Salahshouri, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, about 150 students were arrested during the nationwide protests last December, and sentences have been issued for 17 of them so far. Additionally, according to Mahmoud Sadeghi, another member of parliament, the students' sentences were issued based on reports and interrogations by the Ministry of Intelligence. Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East division at Human Rights Watch, has urged Hassan Rouhani to instruct the ministries under his supervision to end the crackdown on students, referencing Rouhani's electoral promises. Last week, 125 professors from various universities in Iran wrote a letter to Hassan Rouhani, protesting the arrests and sentences issued against students in recent months and calling for his 'support' for the students.