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Reports have been bubbling up on Twitter of a major government raid on dormitories at Tehran University last night. Photos and video posted online show destroyed doors, ransacked rooms, and students displaying their injuries.
Now the Guardian, a major UK newspaper, has posted an eyewitness report on last night’s events online:
The protests at a university in Tehran were bigger than on Saturday night. Students gathered in front of the dormitory, and they were throwing stones at bricks at the riot police and basijis [militiamen] who had attacked them with teargas.
At 1.30am riot police opened fire with teargas. We could hear the shots every minute. Three protestors were hit – one in the leg, one in his eye, and one in his neck – and then six more were hit, but nobody was allowed to go and help them.
They were screaming and the student who was hit in the eye was in a terrible condition, but the police didn’t let anyone help them. Then the police went into the dormitory complex.
They took over block number 23 and severely attacked the students there with plastic batons. The police set fire to the student’s belongings and their beds. Then special guards from the army entered the dorms carrying rifles.
At least 300 special guards and riot police on motorbikes joined the ones in the dorms, and they were firing more teargas. I was in dorm number 22 when they broke down the doors and entered the building, firing at least 10 teargas rounds.
We had nowhere to hide but the toilets and bathrooms, and they shouted “You traitors to the Islamic republic, you bastards, leave the building or we’ll shoot you all.” Many students were severely wounded in the attack – we could hear injured students groaning and shouting for help.
At 3am the special guards and riot police said on loudspeakers: “If you evacuate the building we won’t harm you. Otherwise you’ll all be injured or killed.”
Then all the students came out of the building in lines, with their hands on their heads. The police hit then with batons and some started to shout that they had conquered the dorms. Eventually they let us go back to our rooms, but at least ten had been shot, some appeared to have been killed, and hundreds were injured.
10 am update: Reuters reports that four hundred Tehran University students have staged a protest at a mosque on campus this morning, announcing plans for a sit-in tomorrow. One says more than a hundred students were arrested in last night’s militia assault on the dorms.
1:45 pm update: Many more photos of destruction of dorm rooms. Lots of broken doors, shattered glass, fire damage.
10 pm update: A report claims five students were killed in the dorm assault. A committee of the Iranian parliament will be conducting an investigation of the incident.
Reporting from Iran in the wake of the apparent theft of the presidential election is still extremely fragmentary, but it’s clear that there’s a tremendous amount of unrest, and that that unrest is in large part being led by students. Here’s what I’ve been able to glean about the situation so far this morning:
Hundreds of riot police have shut down the road to the dormitories at Tehran University, where student riots against the regime took place ten years ago. Violence has also been reported at Shahid Beheshti University. More than a hundred faculty members at Sharif University in Tehran have resigned in protest of the government’s actions regarding the election. University exams, scheduled for this weekend across Iran, have been postponed until next month.
Much of the most dramatic news on the Iranian situation is coming from Twitter. (English-language Twitter feeds from Iranian students include @change_for_iran and @tehranelection — I’ll add to this list as I can.) Many of these reports are unsourced and unverifiable, but a sample of results from a search on iranelection university gives a feel for what’s out there:
- @1luvfreedom Students at Univ of Tehran barricaded campus. Continue to hold the university against security forces’ violence. #iranelection
- @smileofcrash 180 teachers of Amir Kabir university resign for supporting people…Viva teachers:) #iranelection
- @Gita situation in tehran University is so worrisome. police have attacked to girls dormitory #tehran #iranelection
- @madyar: the students and people of ferdosiuniversity in mashhad have demonstration and they chant#IranElection #IranElections
Iranian students are taking to the streets to protest the apparent theft of their country’s presidential election by hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iran’s students overwhelmingly supported challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, and they are deeply distrustful of government results that show Ahmadinejad winning re-election in a landslide. In Tehran there are reports of police beating students with batons, and even of police and student demonstrators throwing rocks at one another.
It remains unclear what steps Mousavi will take next, and how the nation’s students will react as the situation develops — some believe that a meek response by Mousavi could further inflame student anger, creating further instability in the system.
More on this story as it develops.
3 pm update: It’s now midnight in Tehran. Very little solid news has emerged in the last few hours. There are reports that Iranian mobile phone service has been cut off, and that that internet access has been restricted or degraded. Time magazine has eyewitness reports of the fatal beating of a protester, and rumors that Mousavi has been placed under house arrest are circulating widely.
Slate has a short piece on last week’s small, uncomfortable College Republican convention. Highlights of the article:
- Phyllis Schlafly was a featured speaker, and Tim Pawlenty gave the keynote.
- None of the national offices and only one regional seat were contested.
- Only about two hundred people showed up.
- When Michael Steele spoke, the press was barred from the room.
- One attendee said the GOP is currently the “dead meat party,” and needs to reinvent itself as a “happy meal.”
Good times.
Update: Via Twitter, @echomikeromeo passes on a link to this longer, stronger Campus Progress report on the conference.
A study of forty thousand American college students finds that gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are more likely to place importance on political activism than straights, and that gay and bisexual men are more likely to be involved with student organizations. (LGB students were also more likely to value participation in the arts.)
The study, which was just published in the Economics of Education Review, is only available publicly as a pricey ($31.50) download. The above info is from the article’s abstract, and if I can get library access to it, I’ll bring you more details.
studentactivism.net 
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