Protest commemorating students’ day at Tehran university

Iran Press News: The office of fostering unity (Takim Vahdat)* has invited students, professors, civil and political activists in Iran to gather for a protest entitled “The University is Alive”.

According to the regime-run news agency ILNA, the gathering which is scheduled for the commemoration of “students’ day” on Wednesday, December 15th on the campus of Tehran University’s technical college. The gathering is in protest to the privation of rights of students such as the denial of their higher education, tutoring, violation of their privacy, denial of the cultural and political university assemblies and the issuance of heavy and outrageous sentences on the students by the disciplinary committees.

*The Office of Fostering Unity, known in Farsi as Tahkim Vahdat, is the largest student organization in Iran which has mainly been a university students' organization. It was formed to support the rule of Ruhollah Khomeini. Tahkim Vahdat became one of the most vocal critics of hardliners in Iran and promoted a pro-reformist stance, supporting Khatami. Since the failure of the so-called reformists, at present the organization works to promote secularism, though many of its governing members are "nationalist religionists", meaning that they believe in the separation of religion and state though they remain faithful to Islam as their religion.