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7/8/04
Iran: Five Years After Protests, Release
Students
(New York, July 8, 2004) -- Five years after the 1999
Tehran University protests, the Iranian government should immediately release
all student detainees still imprisoned for peaceful dissent, Human
Rights Watch said today.
The Iranian government’s closure of a reformist
newspaper triggered student protests on the Tehran University campus on July 8,
1999 (18th of Tir in the Iranian calendar). After a peaceful student
demonstration, police and plainclothes security forces raided a dormitory,
beating students and trapping many in their rooms. Protests then erupted beyond
the university, growing to a weeklong event. More than 25,000 people eventually
participated in the protests, making it the largest political demonstration
since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In the weeks following the protests, thousands of students
were arrested, taken away by the busload, and held in detention centers and
prisons. Initially, several students were sentenced to death, but these
sentences were later commuted to time in prison. While many of those initially
detained were released, an unknown number of student protestors remain in
prison.
“Five years after the Tehran University protests, it’s
time for the Iranian government to release the peaceful protestors,” said
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and
North Africa Division. “The government also needs to hold plainclothes militia
accountable for the attacks on students that year.”
On June 7, Human Rights Watch released “Like the Dead in
Their Coffins,” which documented extensive physical and psychological abuse of
political detainees in Iranian prisons. A number of student protestors from the
July 1999 protests remain in prison, including Ahmed Batebi, Abbas Fakhravar,
Manouchehr Mohammadi, his brother Akbar Mohammadi and Mehrdad Lohrsabi.
Many of the imprisoned students have been brutally
tortured in prison, barred from seeing their attorneys, and forced to provide
recantations and confessions to the state-controlled media. Many students have
suffered permanent physical and psychological injuries while in detention.
In subsequent years, students across the country have
commemorated the anniversary of the July 1999 protestors with peaceful
demonstrations and public speeches. This year, however, with repression at its
highest since 1999, the government’s message to students is clear: those who
speak out will be detained, punished, and worse.
Ali Taala, the General Director of Security and Political
Affairs at the Tehran governor's office, stated that the Interior Ministry has
denied permits for any student events, saying, “We should try to forget the
bad memories of the 18th of Tir.” Tehran University has also been closed
early.
“The Iranian government is trying to sweep the events of
July 1999 under the rug,” said Whitson. “Instead, it should allow peaceful
commemoration of the Tehran University protests.”
For more information, please contact:
In Brussels, Jean-Paul Marthoz: +32-2-732-2009
In London, Urmi Shah: +44-20-7713-2788
In Washington D.C., Joe Stork: +1-202-612-4327
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