“The total number [registered] at the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science was around 300-something students… Those have now started their studies,” Health Minister Mohammadreza Zafarghandi told state media IRNA.
Expelling students was a tactic used by the Iranian government to crack down on protests taking place in universities. Students were active participants in the Jin Jiyan Azadi protest movement in 2022.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the protests, at least 2,843 students from 45 different institutions were summoned to disciplinary committees, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
CHRI has also “identified over 720 students by name who have been arbitrarily arrested by state security forces since major protests erupted across Iran in September 2022,” it said last year.
Many students were released after being held for months without access to a lawyer, yet now are facing suspensions and “banishment,” said CHRI.
In August, President Masoud Pezeshkian said that students who had been expelled from universities should be readmitted.
Health Minister Zafarghandi said that the files of those students who were expelled "for disciplinary reasons" are going to be reviewed.
“Many of the sentences that had been previously issued had not gone through the proper legal procedures,” he said.
Educators have also been targeted. CHRI reported that, “at least 60 professors have been expelled, suspended, forced into retirement, or had their salaries terminated for allegedly expressing support for the protests.”
The Jin Jiyan Azadi (Women Life Freedomb) protests were sparked by the September 2022 death of a Kurdish woman, Zhina Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the morality police after she was detained for reportedly not correctly wearing a hijab, in violation of Iran’s strict dress code.
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