Iran International
As the anniversary of the Mahsa Movement in September approaches, Iran’s regime is worried about the possibility of unrest in universities spilling over to the streets.
“The enemy has not given up. They’ve said that universities are the first place where new riots should begin,” the official in charge of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representatives in universities across the country, Mostafa Rostami, said at a gathering.
In advocating for preventive measures, Rostami said, “They will completely be defeated if they can’t do something on the anniversary of last year’s riots.”
Iranian authorities always refer to anti-government protests, even peaceful demonstrations, as riots.
At the same gathering, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, chief of the political bureau of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), said “vindication jihad” should be carried out in universities before the upcoming parliamentary elections in March.
In recent years, Khamenei has applied the phrase ‘vindication jihad’ (jihad tabyyin) to efforts both in the media and on social media platforms and has referred to supporters and employees active in social media as "soldiers of soft war." The term basically means propaganda efforts.
“The enemy has invested its hope in the coming months until the end of the [Iranian calendar] year [March 21]. All their evil plans will fail if we can be present in universities carrying out vindication jihad and people create an epic in March [with their presence in the elections],” Javani said.
Iranian students had a very active role in the protest movement that was sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini in the custody of morality police. Since then, hundreds of students have been expelled or suspended for their activities.
At the same time, activists both inside Iran and abroad have been discussing on social media the importance of the anniversary to show the regime that the protest movement is alive and strong.
Student sources say the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has recently bestowed extraordinary powers to university authorities and security forces to control students and their professors, including the power to suspend those who are known to be government critics. This week, two theology professors at Isfahan University were suspended for “opposing the government and Islam”.
In June tensions grew in universities when security forces cracked down on students at Tehran University of Art protesting draconian hijab laws.
In recent months, the anti-compulsory hijab movement has gained greater momentum, particularly in universities, with many students defying the rules as a form of civil disobedience, showing up on campuses without a headscarf and wearing ordinary cloths instead of the mandatory long coverings.
“It’s ten months since the Mahsa Uprising, during which we demanded our right to life. Today, [ensuring one’s] right to life depends on recovering [lost] civil rights. We have no exit path other than resistance … because passivity in the face of exclusion would only mean perishing,” students of Tehran University said in a statement last week.
“Under various pretexts, from [non-abidance to rules of] hijab to student activity, students are maliciously deprived of their right to study even if they manage to get in,” the statement said.
Students also criticized “dual standards” that allow members of Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi to study in Iranian universities by the virtue of belonging to proxy militia forces but blocks “ideological outcasts” and lower-class Iranians even if they are gifted.
Critics say Iran's university admissions system heavily favors students from the wealthiest families who can afford expensive tutors and classes to prepare for admissions to top universities in highly sought-after fields.
Instead, they talked about seemingly unrelated and misplaced issues, while many of their rank and file complain that the social status of the Shiite clergy is declining among ordinary people.
The man who grabbed the public’s attention this week was a hardliner official in the northern Gilan Province, who is married but had sex with a young man. The news immediately went viral after damning videos were leaked on social media.
Homosexuality is a serious crime in the Islamic Republic, and more so in this case when the man was married and was supposed to be a gatekeeper for morality.
He was the director general for Cultural and Islamic Guidance and was removed from his post with unusual speed, unseen in Iran when officials are cut red-handed. The fiasco happened at the worst possible time during the Muharram public mourning ceremonies to mark the the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the third Imam of the Shiite sect, 1,400 years ago.
Out of the blue, the Imam in Tehran, Ahmad Khatami, said some people believe the money spent on an Islamic festival in Tehran should have been used for taking care of an endangered species of Iranian cheetahs. This had very little to do with the pressing concerns of ordinary people, hit by a 70-percent annual inflation rate, and seemed a bad improvisation to fill the clerics sermon.
In another comment which made sense only in relation to the new round of violent crackdown on Iranian women defying the compulsory hijab, Khatami said those who come out of their houses without wearing headscarf are sick.
He further charged that women without hijab are backward and mentally retarded. In recent days, courts in Tehran have sentenced several movie starts who had appeared in public without headscarves to taking part in counselling sessions and presenting a certificate of mental health to the court.
In another part of his sermon, Khatami said that Muslim nations will make the government of Sweden repent for authorizing the burning of the Quran. Meanwhile, he thanked the government of Iraq, where the protesters had attacked the Swedish embassy, for deporting Sweden's ambassador.
In another development, the Imam in Mashhad, Ahmad Alamolhoda said without presenting any evidence that "the enemies" wish to suppress the clerics who rely on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He further claimed that to do so, the enemies use all powers and means at their disposal.
Regime officials and loyalists use the term “enemies” to refer to the United States and its allies. Similar unfounded statements are made by other clerics and officials who think that Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei likes to bash “the enemies.”
Alamolhoda, who was the main culprit in a recently disclosed corruption case covered by the Iranian media abroad, presumably made the comment to clear himself of the charges of corruption and to reassure Khamenei that he is the leader's obedient servant in the religious city. It should be noted that the cleric is the father-in-law of President Ebrahim Raisi.
Ironically, on the same date that the Friday Imams made those statements, conservative news website Tabnak called on the country's leaders to bar state officials and clerics from taking advantage of religious values and symbols. Alluding to the scandal in Gilan Province, Tabnak asked in an article on Friday: "How can we justify the behavior of a state official who introduces himself as a 'servant of Imam Hussain' and all of a sudden a leaked video on social media reveals his ethical corruption?" The website added, "Iran's government is a religious government. State officials pretend in public to be devoted to religious values, but some of them take advantage of this. But when these individuals are involved in a scandal the people find out what kind of a monster they were dealing with. As a result, the people are shocked and subsequently become indifferent toward sacred values."