CNN
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More than 2,000 academics from colleges and universities across the country have written to President Joe Biden, urging him to do more to support anti-government protesters in Iran. Many of them come out of Iranian universities and schools, and young Iranians take to the streets to take to the streets and confront the country’s brutal security services.
A letter sent to Biden on Tuesday night, obtained by CNN, was signed by 10 Nobel laureates. We urge you to take “further concrete actions” that do not include ending negotiations with Iran and easing sanctions.
Iranian students have declared sit-ins and strikes during some of the largest anti-government demonstrations to rule the country since the 1979 revolution. The movement was largely inspired and fueled by women after the death of 22-year-old Masa Amini after being detained by Iran’s morality police in mid-September.
Until protests erupted after Amini’s death, the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the nuclear deal with Iran have now been put on hold. The administration is imposing more sanctions on Iran, meeting with high-profile activists and considering how to help protesters. discussed how it would work in Iran.
But the signatories feel that the United States has not gone far enough.
Leading the letter to Biden, Professor Kazem Kazeronian, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Engineering, said, “This administration must pay for everyone it kills, injures, and imprisons.” Stated. Kazerounian said he and his wife left for the United States after protesting against the Shah of Iran during his 1979 revolution and the university was closed. Many of those who put their names in the letter are part of the Iranian diaspora in the United States.
“Everyone is touched by the news from Iran, the bravery of women and girls in the constant protests day and night,” Kazeronian added. “It is very natural for our academic colleagues to come together in solidarity with the Iranian academic community.”
The letter calls the university campus a “holy ground” and highlights last month’s violent crackdown on Tehran’s prestigious Sharif Institute of Technology. A student was shot and trapped in a parking lot by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a video seen by CNN from social media.
“There was blood everywhere,” an eyewitness told CNN.
Hundreds of protesters are believed to have been killed and thousands arrested, observers and activists said. The chief justice of Tehran province said on Monday that about 1,000 people would be indicted and put on trial for their involvement, according to the state-owned IRNA.
“This really hurts my conscience,” said Morteza Ghalib, an aeronautics professor at Caltech who signed the letter. “I cannot remain silent and express my dissatisfaction with this and my expectations as a citizen of the United States from the President.”
“We need more than just words,” he added.
Over the weekend, students from the University of Tehran, another university in the capital, were seen marching and chanting in a video obtained by CNN. It’s time to be angry. ”
“As nationwide protests continue, armed plainclothes forces of the Islamic Republic have invaded university campuses, violently repressed and arrested protesting students,” said the Norwegian-based NGO. Iran Human Rights said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Chief Hossein Salami warned at Saturday’s funeral that it would be the last time protesters would take to the streets.
“Universities should not be turned into US battlefields against nations,” Salami said, accusing the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Israel of fomenting the unrest.
Aside from calling on Mr. Biden to halt negotiations with Iran’s theocratic regime, scholars have called for sanctions not to be eased “until all Iranian human rights abusers are held accountable.”
“We also ask that the Iranian people recognize their universally recognized right to self-defense as they seek to achieve sovereignty and self-determination,” the letter concluded.
