Several young students were participating in a civil and peaceful gathering, carrying placards that read, “We are gathering to celebrate 18 Tir [the anniversary of the 1999 student uprising] and to protest university conditions and the continued detention of eight Polytechnic University students.” But even this much was not tolerated: “Police officers, accompanied by plain-clothed forces, attacked the gathering of students from Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat [“Office for Consolidating Unity”] in front of the Polytechnic University’s main gate and arrested the demonstrators.”

Six students were arrested during the attack: Mehdi Hashemi, Ali Nikoonesbati, Mehdi Arabshahi, Bahareh Hedayat, Hanif Yazdani and Ali Vaghfi.

But this was not the end of the story. Students from Advar-e Tahkim Organization were next: “Plain-clothed agents attacked the main office of Advar-e Tahkim and arrested several students after firing bullets into the air.”

It was not an ordinary arrest: “The police attack on the office of Advar-e Tahkim, which was accompanied by gunshots and extraordinary violence, was so aggressive that residents of the area gathered to see what was happening. In response, police officers reverted to lies and insisted that they were busting a drug gang.”

Officers then confiscated all of Advar-e Tahkim’s computers and documents before taking the students away. Among the line of arrested individuals were Abdollah Momeni, former central committee member of Dafter-e Tahkim Vahdat and Advar-e Tahkim’s spokesperson, Bahram Fayazi, member of Advar-e Tahkim’s central committee, the mother of Mohammad Hashemi, an arrested student, Morteza Eslahchi, Mojtaba Bayat, Ezatollah Ghalandari, Habib Hajheidari, Masoud Habibi, Saeed Hosseinnia, and Arash Khandel.

Agents then sealed the office of Advar-e Tahkim shut. In the morning, students had taped a statement to the office entrance. It read, “The central committee of Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat is active in pursuing the legal rights of its members at a time when passiveness and inactivity has overcome intellectuals and politicians, overshadowing their quest for truth and justice. As a result, the dust of hopelessness and despair has flooded the nation… But our generation is alive and the quest for freedom, justice, democracy and human rights is flourishing in the depth of its being.”

Hours later, passers-by could see another statement that was written in protest to the arrests: “The new wave of pressure has driven students to the edge. Those who are unable to hear the protest against the government’s irrational decisions smell ‘corruption’ inside the university. In a day, six members from Daftar-e Tahkim Vahdat’s central committee were arrested – on the anniversary of 18 Tir, and for the crime of participating in a peaceful gathering in front of the Polytechnic University. Hours later officers attack the office of Advar-e Tahkim and, in an illegal and violent act, kidnap nine of our fellow citizens. What is this all for? What are the students paying back for?”

source: www.roozonline.com