On the fourth day of the nationwide protests in Iran, on Wednesday, December 31, 2025, the uprising entered a new phase, significantly featured by the growing convergence between popular demonstrations and the student movement. This convergence caused security forces to raid the dormitory of female students at the Melli University (Beheshti) and to arrest a large group of student activists.
According to reports, at 11:15 p.m. on Wednesday night, December 31, plainclothes agents and security forces raided the women’s dormitory of Melli University in Tehran (Beheshti) and arrested at least three female students.
Following the raid, large numbers of female and male students gathered outside the dormitory, chanting slogans such as “Death to the dictator” and “Shameless, shameless” in protest against the arrests. The raid took place after female students had begun a nighttime gathering and demonstration within the dormitory compound.
At the same time, as part of the ongoing wave of arrests at universities, Sarira Karimi, Secretary of (the Student Union) Council of the Faculty of Law and Political Science and a member of the Central Student Union Council of the University of Tehran, was also arrested on Wednesday.
In Isfahan, security forces on Wednesday, December 31, attacked and pepper sprayed women protesters who were sitting on the floor in Naqsh-e Jahan Square.
The violent crackdown on women protesters in Isfahan, alongside the arrest of female students at Melli University of Tehran (Beheshti) and the University of Tehran amid the intensification of nationwide protests, once again underscored the central role of women and female students in this uprising and highlighted the authorities’ deep fear of the growing linkage between these social forces and the broader nationwide protest movement.
The fourth day of nationwide protests in Iran was marked by complete market shutdowns, street gatherings, explicit anti-dictatorship slogans, direct confrontations with security forces, and attacks on government centers from Tehran and Isfahan to Kermanshah, Khuzestan, Lorestan, and Hamedan.
