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Security offices and disciplinary committees have become a hub of activity at Iranian universities these days. The lines of accused students waiting to be processed for taking part in protesting the election outcome are creating a veritable traffic jam outside the doors of these offices. This traffic jam is indicative of one clear truth: those who ordered the crackdown on the students' movement, unaware that the sword they have been wielding has never been able to make a single cut, are still trying to take coercive measures instead of entering into dialogue with students.
The student movement in Iran has a sixty-year history. For Iranians who experienced the fruits of the inauguration of the country’s first university, it was no less grand a political and nationalist movement as that of the nationalization of the oil industry.

This was a movement whose leaders had mainly risen from the ranks of professors, students, and graduates of the university. With the expansion of higher education, this movement today enjoys greater power quantitatively, although previously it had regressed as a result of frustrations caused by the failure to develop an open society.
The student movement in Iran has three critical and momentous phases. The first phase of alliance led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, however this victory proved to have not been an auspicious beginning for the student movement. In subsequent years, the Islamic Republic started its crackdown and purge of those parts of the movement which adhered to leftist, liberal, and secular ideologies.
The second phase of alliance, which formed on May 23 (2nd of Khordad), 1997, precipitated the presidential election victory of the liberal Mohammad Khatami. However, this time, too, in-fighting and the failure to secure equilibrium between reformists inside the establishment and those in civil society, who were asking for fundamental reforms, caused the student movement to formally announce its withdrawal from political activities. At this juncture, a segment of the student movement announced that it would continue to act as a human rights watchdog.
However, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gained ascendancy and as the majority of reformists withdrew from the established order, the grounds for the formation of a new alliance in this movement began to appear. Protest against Ahmadinejad's fundamentalist views of political, international, cultural and even philosophical issues served as the grounds upon which this movement could form a new alliance. The upshot of these protests was an election which few observers predicted would turn into a widespread social movement.
In general, Iran's student movement did not think favorably of those who prepared themselves to run for presidency against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mohammad Khatami, who had earlier retreated from candidacy, had in the students' view already proved he was unable to deliver. For students too young to remember Mir Hossein Mousavi's term as prime minister, he was on the one hand, an unknown figure, and, on the other, seen as more inclined towards the conservatives. Although Mehdi Karrubi enjoyed the support of a fraction of this movement, he never managed to secure the support of the majority of the students' movement.
Nonetheless, that unexpected event took place and the huge mistake on the part of the established order – organized rigging of the election – awakened the sleeping giant. Objection to the outcome of the election by candidates who were supported by reformists prepared the grounds for a widespread protest in which students were the most important catalysts. Immediately after the election, the dormitory of the University of Tehran, the biggest in Iran, was attacked by the militia supported by the Revolutionary Guard, and some of the protesting students were killed, beaten up, or raped.
Despite this extensive crackdown, the established order has continued to observe the activities of this movement with worried eyes. With the reopening of universities, the establishment's schemes to put down the heads of this movement have already been launched. Of course, plans like closing down some universities on the pretext of swine flu did not prove useful. The barring of some students, with a record of participation in protests, from registration at universities did not work to forestall unrest on campuses. Therefore, during the first few days of the academic year, the larger universities became the stage for widespread protests. Although these protests were mounted in a peaceful and nonviolent way, they have paved the way for broader resistance, which can lead to a perpetual state of crisis for educational institutions.
As a result, university security offices and disciplinary committees have become increasingly busy over the last month summoning protesting students and issuing rulings of expulsion or suspension from universities. These committees have acted in league with the Ministry of Intelligence and by summoning and punishing students; they are trying to bring the situation in universities under control.
As reported by a student website, last week in Tehran 17 student members of the Central Council of the Office for the Consolidation of Unity, which is considered the biggest student organization of Iran, were summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence and interrogated for 24 hours, after which two of them were eventually sent to the Evin Prison. In addition, at least six students of Sharif University, one of the most reputable universities in the Middle East, were summoned to the disciplinary committee and four of them received the ruling of suspension from school for one semester. The charge against these students is their protest of the presence of the Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Kamran Daneshju, in their university, which took place on September 29. These students were not only suspended from school for a semester but have also been forbidden from entering the university campus.
Shiraz University has also been one of the main stages for student protests following the announcement of the election outcome. Because they had mounted protests, many students of this university are currently expecting heavy rulings by the Disciplinary Committee and many others who had been summoned to security organs have been arrested by these forces and have spent some time in custody. It is also said that the Disciplinary Committee of Shiraz University stops these students from entering the university campus. This is happening while no ruling forbidding these students from entering the campus has been issued to them.
Other students from Shiraz University who had been suspended from school in the past year have also had to face many problems at the beginning of the new school year. These students, who wanted to go back to university after completing suspension from school, have been faced with disagreeable treatment by the university Security Office and Disciplinary Committee. As a condition for letting these students enter university, school security organs have mandated a signed note of commitment by the students and their parents. On the same basis, security officials of the University have moved many student activists from a dormitory located downtown to one fifteen kilometers outside of Shiraz. The same thing has happened in the dormitory of the University of Tehran. It is said that some undergraduate students have been moved from this dormitory to other dorms across the city of Tehran.
Student protests and the awakening which was once only observed in state universities have now spread to other campuses. Last week, the technical school of Azad University of Tehran witnessed widespread protest rallies which met with a crackdown by police and security forces. Although this university is out of the government's control, security organs are wielding strict control over it.
Today, controlling the unrest in Iran's universities is not the only concern of the security and military organs. What is giving them the most concern are the upcoming events of November 4 and December 7. November 4 is the day when a number of Iranian students, some of whom are in prison now on charges of mounting a 'velvet revolution,' occupied the American embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostage in protest against the government of the US giving refuge to the former Shah of Iran. Every year on this day, two governmental and independent gatherings are held. This day provides an opportunity for the students' movement to slap the face of the establishment and this is exactly what has stirred the establishment into frantic activity. December 7 commemorates the day when the Shah's military forces attacked the University of Tehran and martyred three students. For students, who are not able to stage rallies and demonstrations under regular conditions, these two days are nothing less than two historic opportunities to express their protest and follow up on demands. This is why disciplinary committees have recently been summoning students en masse and expelling them from universities and campuses in a desperate move to bring the situation under control.

Text: http://www.gozaar.org/template1.php?id=1368&language=english