City boy

The first day of the elections for the student activist body ISA finally took place today, and as speculated, there were many clashes between the voting students and Basiji revolutionary guard “students” who tried to interrupt the elections.

The AKU Students Union who had asked for a chance to organise an event on the recent crisis over 3 weeks ago still had not recieved any response by the university officials.

Majid Atayi-Pur, the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, had not dealt with this matter yet, while the Basiji revolutionary guards had continuously held talks and events on the matter during this time, which have been illegal from the student union’s view.

When Atayi-Pur was asked why the Basijis were able to bring in audio equipments and guest speakers on to the campus to continue their propaganda against the activist students and publications without any permission from the student union, he had no comments.

From the early morning today the students union called for a walk out of all students from the classes in protest to the pressure from the Ministry of Science, the university’s chair Ali Reza Rahai, and also the security guards who had turned against the students on the recent affairs.

At noon the student union presented a talk called “Objection to the start of the second cultural revolution“, over 1500 students attended the event with many carrying banners and placards that read:

“The only way out is for Rahayi to resign” (referring to Dr. Rahayi, president of the university, an ally of hardline president Ahmadinejad)
“Maghdad has joined his school friends” (Referring to Maghdad Khalilpur, editor of student newspaper Atiyeh)
“Free Ahmad” (Ahmad Ghassaban, now in 209 section of Evin prison - Iranian activists worst nightmare)
“You attack, you kill, but how do you stop a flower from growing?” (flower representing the growing student activism),
“Today Babak, Ahmad, Maghdad, Tomorrow..” (referring to student activists arrested in AK University in the past few weeks)
“Today we are peaceful, but Tomorrow..”
“They don’t let the student in his place” (regarding the recent banning of number of student activists from entering the campus)

The first speaker was Mehdi Abolhasani a committee member of the AKU students union who strongly condemned the arrest of Ahmad Ghassaban by the unidentified forces. He announced that until all those arrested are free the student union shall not stop campaigning and condemned those who support the arrest of the students for their beliefs. He also said that many of the activists were being followed and one of the editors of the student published newspapers on campus, Maghdad Khalilpur, was seized by unidentified forces that day.

Sajjad Vis Maradi, the representitive of the student published media on campus, was the second speaker who condemned the action by Rouzbehani, the chair for the cultural matters at the university, who has banned all student publications, and went further to say that “they never wanted us to have student published press”, and he said that if the ban is not lifted without a justification, the students should start publishing their newspapers again.

Soon after the speeches, the voting began. Only two hours after the start of the vote gathering, the Basijis attacked the ballot boxes however they were quickly held back by the students who made a human wall infront of the boxes against them. The students started shouting “Basiji - be ashamed, leave the university” and “Guns, Tanks, Basijis, nothing is gonna stop us now“. The ballot boxes were then moved in to a safe location.

The security forces who believed that they have probably been moved to the Madan college, attacked it’s gates and broke them open, however they had no luck finding them. They then broke the female’s locker room open and took the lockers out to be searched! The students who witnessed this soon clashed with the forces.

The voting continues tomorrow and ISA has announced that those who could not vote today because of the interruptions should try again tomorrow.

Also: The demand for a second cultural revolution in Iran seems to be growing by the Basijis, who have called for execution of Professor Nooredin Zarrin-kelk, father of Animation in Iran.

Update: Results..