IRGC Publication: Encroachments In Universities Must be Stopped

A few days after president Hassan Rouhani reiterated his campaign promise of working to release the leaders of the Green Movement from their house arrest in response to students’ demands, the bulletin of the political office of the Revolutionary Guards criticized Rouhani for this promise adding that “planners” at universities had to be stopped.

Sobh Sadegh weekly publication of the political office of the Revolutionary Guards published a story objecting to the demand that a group of students has made of the government to lift the house arrest of the leaders of the Green Movement and Rouhani’s comments that “Our path remains the same that we have promised to you. Our pledge is unbreakable.”

Author Reza Garmabadri, who is also a member of the political office of the IRGC wrote, “Some media have made a big issue out of this. I do not think the issue is that big to create any concerns. If ten, hundred, three hundred, thousand etc. students chant slogans against the regime or support the sedition (a term officials use for the massive revolts that followed the 2009 presidential election), the strong body of the regime will not be scathed.” He asserts that the strength of the regime was demonstrated when domestic and foreign enemies of the regime rose up in 2009 and protested in streets. “Such events are not an issue or of concern to the regime,” he asserted. He continued, “What is concerning and is related to the government is the presence of individuals and creeping actions and plans that use these students as tools. This is a dangerous issue that needs to be stopped.”

The article implies that in the 2009 protests the regime pursued the same strategy of rounding up the leaders of the protestors, while releasing the many participants of the protests after their initial arrest. The author claims that the regime is “never not alarmed or worried about students who raise protesting slogans and behave badly and does not view them to be among the enemies. It is at worth an uninformed group that can be enlightened.  At the same time there are the planners (leaders) who intend to make universities their battle grounds and by deceiving students turn them into tools for their ends. This cannot be disregarded.”

Rouhani’s recent comments about the Green Movement leaders came during his speech to students on the occasion of student day. During the event, students changed slogans calling for the lifting of house arrests of the Green Movement leaders.

The criticism of the IRGC’s political office was not isolated. Other IRGC affiliated websites had earlier posted concerns about student day and how the day was going to be commemorated. For example, Rahe Dana website wrote that “Students who had issues had returned to universities and misused the atmosphere that university officials had created by widely insulting the Islamic republic regime, the Quran, the velayate faghih, and the supreme leader.”

According to this article, which was also reprinted in a Fars news agency report – an agency itself affiliated with the Guards – “With prior planning, students had carried placards and posters of one of the leaders of the sedition and had called for the release of the sedition leaders.”

The concerns of the IRGC and the displeasure about of its political office and media about this year’s student day activities follows earlier  measures by the state security agencies to contain the student day celebrations and events and prevent the presence of reformers in such activities.
Mohammad Javad Jame Bozorgi, the secretary of the association of student groups of Tehran University had earlier said, “Because Tehran University is a symbol of higher education and there are special sensitivities over it since 2009, special measures have been taken by the top leadership for student day commemorations.” According to him, these measures were limited to only one university but covered all. He added that those individuals who had a record on security or political issues or were among sedition activists are barred from coming to the university on student day.