Eighty days of the bravery of the Iranian people fighting one of the most heinous and totalitarian suppressive states in the world. The first-ever women-led revolution in the world. Children as young as 8 years old holding the torch of the national uprising that demands freedom, equality,
justice and prosperity. Students at universities, nationwide, are the vanguards in this revolutionary movement. Not only in this turning point of history, but in every enlightening movement Iran has ever seen since the 1979 revolution, academia has been always at the forefront.
- Cultural Revolution of 1980 to 1983 in which many of the students and professors who were not aligned with the ideology of the current regime were expelled from the universities in the so-called process of “academic purification”.
- the inhumane siege of and brutal raid of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at Kuye Daneshga, the dormitory of the prestigious University of Tehran in 1999.
- The unrest of 2003, was ignited by the students; people crying for freedom, and democracy. Protesting against high unemployment, poverty and police cruelty.
- The green movement started with large-scale presidential election fraud. Students were demanding political freedom, transparency and annulment of the election. Their persistence in their demands subsequently led to millions of people peacefully demonstrating at the Azadi (Freedom) Tower. Many of the students were banned from
education, suspended, detained, tortured and got raped. The movement eventually turned into a battlefield between the protestors and the security forces, IRGC specifically. People consequently chanted for regime change. Alas, faced with violent use of live ammunition, heavy artillery and mass imprisonment. - Protests of 2018, a massive population poured into the streets due to the abrupt decrease in national currency value. Many were of poorer strata accompanied by the students. No wonder, they were heavily suppressed by the IRGC and the special units of the security forces. The number of unidentified imprisoners, death tolls and detainees
remain still unknown today. - Protests of 2018-2019, one more time, the national currency value sank drastically. Shortly, followed by an exponential increase in the fuel price. Marked the bloodiest of the protests. In only three days, 1500 were shot dead, bullets landing on their vital organs, and died under extreme torture. The Internet was fully shut down for a few weeks. The regime massacred in the absolute darkness of international media coverage. Most probably, the extravagant scale of the crimes the regime committed will remain lying beneath the dust of history.
- Wednesday, January 8, 2020, at 6:15 local time, tragic shot down of the Ukrainian passenger flight PS752 amidst the tension between the IRGC and the US Army; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched two missiles aiming at the aeroplane. All 176 passengers on the flight died instantaneously. Many of them were students studying in Canada. Their fellow students at Iranian universities demonstrated and mourned for the loss. But only received violent responses from the security forces.
Now only less than two years, yet again, the people of Iran rose again against the tyranny of the barbaric regime in Iran. This time, led by the women, on a scale, indigestible for the totalitarian regime in Iran. An uprising that knows no age, no geographic and no gender boundary. More
than 100 cities are engaged. Bazaars, truck drivers, merchants, labourers, teachers and many more are on strike to make the regime kneel before the will of the people. To put an end to the nightmare of decades of discrimination, inequality, gender apartheid, poverty, misery, repression, suppression and all the other injustices that undermine the freedom, human rights, prosperity and dignity of a nation. It is no surprise that the students once more stand on the right side of history. Protesting shoulder to shoulder, fighting, and putting their lives at risk. But not everyone in academia is supporting the students. Basiji students, undercover members of the paramilitary unit of IRGC, harass them, violently attacks them and occasionally detain them. Detainees remain in custody for an unreasonable amount of time, longer than stated by law, without any court decrees.
Meanwhile, many undergo systematic torture, and rape and under pressure, are forced to confess against themselves; giving excuses to the corrupted judicial bodies of the regime to prosecute them in unfair courts. When taken to the court, they are disallowed to have their own appointed lawyer. If appointed, the lawyer does not have access to the case and why, because the judge rules the case is classified and access to it endangers national security. If freed, the student is banned from education. Expelled from the university for eternity. Suspension is the least awaiting them outside the prison. And for those whose identity remains unknown, their whereabouts remain a mystery. Their families unaware of them, adrift search for their beloved children, in hospitals, prisons, police stations, and forensic hospitals but to no avail.
For 4 decades, the world closed its eyes to the atrocities, villainy, and disgrace of the regime in Iran. Yet this time, we do not let the malicious regime in Iran stifle the breath of the uprising.
- As a community of Iranian scholars in Potsdam, we strongly condemn evil crimes the regime in Iran is currently committing against courageous people, especially the valiant students.
- It is our duty as a larger community around the world to spread the word about their audacious resistant against the dictatorship regime in Iran which murders in cold blood and commits war crimes.
- We stand firm in this grave moment of history with the students and members of the academia in Iran who demand the fall of this ill-natured regime.
- We call you on issuing official statements in collaboration with your fellow colleagues to condemn the assault targeting the academic community by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- Isolate those academic members in your faculty who are in tight collaboration with the inhumane regime in Iran. Europe must not be a haven for these undesirable people.
- We ask you to urge your statesmen, members of parliament and chancellor to cut off any diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran to exert univocal global pressure on this murderous regime.
This rally is the smallest step we can take to help the revolution of the Iranian people, who have sacrificed their lives and are standing bare-handed against a regime armed to teeth. Be the voice of the students of Iran, be the voice of the people of Iran — Zan Zendegi Azadi
Iranian students in Potsdam
