Iranian activist nominated for Student Peace Prize

Bahareh Hedayat

Bahareh Hedayat, Iranian student activist was nominated for the 2010 Student Peace Prize by the European Students’ Union, an umbrella organization of 45 national unions comprised of students from 35 different countries.

European Students’ Union has announced that they are monitoring the situation of students in Iran and that they have condemned Islamic Republic’s crack down on student activists on several occasions.

The statement issued by the European Students’ Union commends Bahareh Hedayat for her persistent struggle against oppression despite her repeated arrests and solitary confinements.

Bahareh Hedayat, who has been arrested on several occasions for her union activities, was last arrested in December of 2009 and is currently facing 16 counts of charges including “propagating a negative image of the regime, taking part in post-election protests, talking to foreign media and insulting the Supreme Leader and the President.”

Ms. Hedayat is also active in Iran’s women’s rights movement and is a founding member of the One Million Signature Campaign to End Discriminatory Laws in Iran. She has also been instrumental in promoting the Campaign throughout Iranian universities.

She was arrested in 2006 in a protest against unequal rights of women and sentenced to a two-year suspended jail term. She was arrested in the nationwide protests against the allegedly fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June of 2009 and later released on a heavy bail.

She was arrested again in December in a gathering in front of Evin Prison in solidarity with the families of the recent political detainees ans is currently imrpisoned.

The Islamic Republic has arrested numerous Iranian dissidents in an attempt to quell the post-election protests. The student movement has been a major target of these arrests.