Azad University students of the Science and Research Branch in Tehran continued their protest on Sunday, December 30, 2018, for the second day in a row at Danesh Square on campus.
The university’s department of security did not permit students to have megaphones and made threats to dissuade the students from holding their protest.
Azad University students did not heed the threats and continued their protest by march and rally and chanted, “Students will die but will never succumb (to tyranny).”
The protest was over the deaths of 10 and injury of at least 28 of Azad University students in a bus crash on campus on Tuesday, December 25, 2018, due to the officials’ neglect.
A group of Azad University students consisted mostly of young women, were sitting on the ground to show their protest when the car of Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, the university’s president, and two of his security vehicles plowed through them, wounding a number of young women students. One of the girls was badly hurt in the foot.
The state-run Borna news agency published a video of the scene, admitting that two Azad University students had been injured in the incident. Subsequently, the regime’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri attended the protest of Azad University students where he was questioned, blamed and criticized by angry students.
In one of the speeches made to the protest gathering, one of Azad University students declared, “We will not give in to oppression and humiliation so long as we are alive. We have stood up to say that we will no longer tolerate such scenes. It is not fair to see these things and not speak up. We will no longer remain silent and we will not be defeated by false accusations. Our blood is not different from the blood of or classmates. What is the benefit of remaining silent? We will stand to the end…”
Also a group of students from the University of Tehran, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran University of Science and Technology, and Sharif University of Technology, issued a statement announcing their plan to commemorate the 7th day of the demise of their classmates in a ceremony at Tehran University and turn it into an act of protest.
In another development, students of the Azad University, Tehran Medical Branch gathered in front of the mullahs’ parliament in Tehran and protested against the cancellation of the admissions of the enrolled students which has left them in an undetermined state since October 3, 2018.
On Saturday, December 29, 2018, students of the international campus of the Dental School of Zanjan gathered outside the university president’s office protesting the university’s lack of response to their demands despite receiving additional tuition from them.
On Sunday, December 30, 2018, the families of the detained Ahvaz Steel workers held another protest outside the Governorate of Khuzestan and demanded the release of the detained steel workers. The daughters of imprisoned workers held manuscripts which read, “Free my dad.”
