Former member of students association whipped & fined

Iran Press News: Mohammad-Reza Rahimi-Rod, former member of the republic-seekers students association of Yazd university was sentenced by the revolutionary court and public court branch 102 to pay a $12,000 cash fine [instead of six months in prison] and 30 lashes.

This student activist is charged with "insulting the person of the supreme leadership " and "insulting the guardian body of the university".

He told the reporter from Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat)* : “This case was built against me, last year, during the hunger strike organized by members of the republic-seeking students and the student association of Yazd university.”

The Republic-seeker students association was dissolved during the last months of Khatami’s reformist administration by the supervising committee of the university.

* The Office of Fostering Unity, known in Farsi as Tahkim Vahdat, is the largest student organization in Iran which has mainly been a university students' organization. It was formed to support the rule of Ruhollah Khomeini. Tahkim Vahdat became one of the most vocal critics of hardliners in Iran and promoted a pro-reformist stance, supporting Khatami. Since the failure of the so-called reformists, at present the organization works to promote secularism, though many of its governing members are "nationalist religionists", meaning that they believe in the separation of religion and state though they remain faithful Islam as their religion.