Students from various universities across Iran staged a sit-in on Saturday amid mounting pressure on activists on campuses after nearly three months of unrest.
Protesters at the university called for the release of imprisoned students, an end to harassment of others, and condemned the execution of 23-year-old protester Mohsen Shekhali.
At Beheshti University in Tehran, they held protest rallies in silence amidst a strong presence of plainclothes government personnel and security forces.
More than 100 students were barred from entering the campus after they called for protests over the suspicious death of their colleague Shahabdin Hashemi, according to a report from Alameh University in Tehran.
The hanged body of Shahabuddin Hashemi was found Thursday in a dormitory at Allameh University, but state media claimed he committed suicide as a result of mental health problems.
However, his brother Medhi Hashemi denied the allegations on social media as “filthy lies” and said his brother’s “suspicious murder” was being reported as a “fake suicide by legal authorities”.
In the western city of Sanandaji, security forces attacked students protesting at a college of technology as female students set fire to the flag of the Islamic Republic.
Security forces repeatedly raided campuses and confronted student protesters. More than 140 universities have become sites of anti-regime protests nationwide, with nearly 600 students in detention as of Thursday, according to the US-based university. human rights activist news agency (Flana).
