Student activist handed heavy prison term

Majid Tavakoli

Amir Kabir Newsletter reports that post-election detainee, Majid Tavakoli, has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, as well as five years ban from political activity and ban from exiting the country.

Majid Tavakoli, who is a member of Amir Kabir University Islamic Student Association, was arrested on December 7, National Student Day, after giving a speech at the University.

The Revolutionary Court has charged him with “assembly and collusion against the regime, propaganda against the regime, insulting the Leadership and the President.”

Majid Tavakoli was arrested twice prior to this. The first time he spent 19 months in prison and the second time he was questioned for over three months in solitary confinement.

State media had claimed that after the speech at the University, Majid Tavakoli had tried to escape the security forces at the scene by “dressing up as a woman.”

A photo of the student activist was released the day after his arrest dressed in a woman’s outfit.

In protest to his arrest and in his support, Iranians started a campaign by the name of “men in Hijab” where numerous men posted their pictures wearing headscarves or chadors on the internet.

Student activist have been target of fierce government crackdown in the past seven months. Yesterday four students from Qazvin’s International University were expelled from university. Six other students were given a total of 18 terms of suspension.

In universities all across the country students are facing similar fates in an attempt by the government to put down the student movement which has been keeping the torch of the post-election protests burning all across the country.