The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has published a report on the state of education in the world, titled Education Under Attack 2010 in which it criticises Iran’s targeting of students and academics in recent years.
The UNESCO report criticises the Iranian authorities’ conduct following the rigged 2009 presidential elections stating that on “14 June 2009, the Bassij (paramilitary police) invaded dormitories at Tehran University, attacking students and burning bedrooms. Three male students and one female student were shot dead, according to Reuters, and rooms were set alight.”
“More violent attacks by security forces on students were reported in the provincial towns of Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz, Bandar Abbas and Mashad.”
Report continues, “On June 25, 2009 seventy university professors were arrested following former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s meeting with members of the Islamic Association of University Teachers of Iran.”
Threats, arrest, torture, murder and the ‘start-rating’ system
Iran is listed as one of the countries in which from “2007 to 2009, state forces or state-backed forces have either beaten, arrested, tortured, threatened with murder or shot dead students, teachers and/or academics.”
“In 2007, the Iranian government reportedly attempted to curtail the independent activities of civil society, including dissident expression among students, trade unionists, university teachers and intellectuals – with recurring waves of arrest and arbitrary sentencing.”
Under a new star-rating system, politically active students were allegedly rated according to the threat they posed, which resulted in some being banned from studying.
UNESCO’s recent report states that in Iran, “there have been reports of children being voluntarily or forcibly recruited from school, or en route to or from school, over the period from 2006 to 2009.”
“[I]n recent years students, teachers and academics have been either beaten, arrested, tortured, threatened with murder or shot dead by state forces or state-backed forces in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Honduras, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”
Iran is also mentioned as one of the countries in which attacks on academics and trade unionists have involved death threats, abduction, forced disappearance, illegal arrests, beating, torture, assassination by bullets or car bombs, or some combination of these.
“At the higher education level, sexual violence against detained students and academics of both sexes has been alleged in Iran.”
“In relation to engaging with the wider academic world, in Iran, a scholar with numerous human rights awards was imprisoned after returning from a conference in Berlin,” according to UNESCO’s report.
The 243 page report states that “a succession of academics, teachers and students have been arrested during the 2007-2009 period on charges of conspiring with ‘enemy governments’, endangering national security, insulting Islam and its clerics, ‘intent to commit propaganda’ or participating in demonstrations.”
“In one incident, 300 teachers were arrested in March 2007 for protesting about working conditions.”
The report also points out that in December 2007, nine teachers were sentenced for taking part in nationwide protests by teachers and academics over working conditions. “The sentences ranged from three years’ compulsory displacement to a two-grade pay cut. According to Education International, threats, beatings, arrests and dismissals had become commonplace across Iran, and more than 700 teachers identified in the protests had had their pay cut, 86 had been suspended and 39 were banned from teaching.”
The “wave of academic sackings following the election of President Ahmadinejad” in 2005 has also been mentioned in the report.
“The Government sets very high bail rates for women activists seemingly to intimidate them,” the report adds.
According to the report “paramilitary Bassij, under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, has recruited boys from middle schools and high schools since 1979. In November 2009, the Revolutionary Guards announced that the Bassij militia would soon be established in elementary schools.”
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