Iranian authorities step up pressure on student group

Bahareh Hedayat, Milad Asadi, Mehdi Arabshahi, Morteza Samiari

Iranian security officials are pressuring the student organization, Unity Consolidation Bureau (Daftar-e Takhim-e Vahdat) to announce its dissolution.

Bahareh Hedayat, Milad Asadi, Mehdi Arabshahi and Morteza Samiari are the detained executive members of the Bureau who are being pressured to make this announcement.

Advarnews website reports that Milad Asadi was arrested at his university, Khajeh Nasir in Tehran in November and was held in solitary confinement for over 55 days and is now being subjected to a second round of questioning.

The authorities have also told Mehdi Arabshahi, Morteza Samiari and Bahareh Hedayat to announce the Consolidation Bureau Organization is dissolved.

Consolidation Bureau is the largest student organization in Iran and government pressure to dissolve it is accompanied with attempts at restricting the activities of Islamic Association of Tehran and Sharif University Professors.

Authorities claim all student and teacher organizations need to align themselves with the regulations of Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution and maintained that all organizations who fail to do so will be confronted.

In the mean time, Amir Kabir Polytechnic Student Association condemned the eight-and-a-half-year prison term handed to their peer Majid Tavakoli, a student activist who was arrested during National Student Day protests on December 17. They accuse the system of “oppression and cruelty” against political prisoners. The announcement ends warning the Islamic Republic establishment that they “too will soon hear the voice of the people of Iran.”