Iran's academic elite protest continued imprisonment of their peer

The arrest of Abdollah Yousefzadegan, a law student at Allame Tabatabai University and winner of the nationwide Olympiad of Literature is once more criticized by a group of his peers who have issued a letter to demand his release.

The letter addressed to Sadegh Larijani, Head of Iranian Judiciary condemns the arrest of Yousefzadegan on March 15 in Mashhad and urges him to release the detained student who has so far not been charged by the authorities.

The letter condemns the harsh treatment of the academic elite and maintains that the arrest of Yousefzadegan “destroys the credibility of the judiciary and trust in the security institutions of the Islamic Republic.”

In the post election events, university students and professors have also been a repeated target of government crackdown on election protesters. Persistence of university protests in Iran has resulted in the arrest and persecution of the Iranian academia.