A letter from the Amir Kabir University student protestors to the people of Iran

Enlightened People of Iran,

The cries that you heard several weeks ago from the Amir Kabir Polytechnic university was neither the voice of the members of various political parties, nor the voices of those who would have supposedly been deceived by the United States of America and Zionists. They were the cries of your children; students seeking freedom and equality at the Polytechnic; raised-up cries for many years of tolerating oppression, cruelty, horror and suffocation at the hands of those autocrats ruling over this land.

Our cries are the echoes of poverty, corruption and discrimination which has run deep roots in our society and has driven the most pure individuals of our land to prostitution, leaving no other choice for the most responsible ones other than to flee the country all together.

Poverty, corruption and discrimination which has been forced upon the honest workers, employees, teachers, women and men of the land has become the basis of all enmity and unrest in our daily lives. How is it possible that in a country where the pages of newspapers that daily become darker and darker with despair, suicide and drug addiction, one can live a calm and uncomplicated life?

Our cries are not the voices of justice-seekers and hate mongering students…students who these days are even deprived of the right to an education. They are sent to prison and die as a result of hunger strike in prison and are shamelessly attacked, ridiculed and insulted by Ahmadinejad and his supporters.

We protest the suppression of the wokers’ protests; workers who have not received their wages for months on end and due to unjust policies of the totalitarian rule, they are fired from their jobs.

We protest the discriminatory laws against women and brutal suppression of peaceful protests for them to obtain the minimum human rights. We stand against the captivity of the critics [of the regime], political protesters and the banning of publications in our country.

Political suppression which in the absence of opposition, facilitates the autocrats - who absolutely distort and obfuscate – dare to pass off their vainglory under the guise of the absolute rights of the Iranian people.

At Amir Kabir University Ahmadinejad speaks of an increase of non-oil exports. Our question is how does one justify an increase in non-oil exports when Iran’s economy is 70% dependent on Iran’s oil?

Mr. Ahmadinejad speaks of the decrease in imports; can one call the growth index of $40 billion a reduction in imports?

We have the right to ask the president and even holler at him to explain what exactly happened to all those promises and slogans? Where is that oil money that was promised to the citizens? Who are those who make up the power and wealth mafia? Will they ever be actually identified? Why is it that the news of all the trips Ahmadinejad takes to various provinces get wide coverage by Islamic regime’s radio and television but the closure of factories and fired workers, teachers and intellectuals who have the responsibility of educating the future generations completely blocked out. Is this not demagoguery?

We have the right to holler at Ahmadinejad to answer why the ministry of science is granted the right to assign stars to students*, prohibiting them from entering onto university campuses. Do the heavy verdicts imposed by the disciplinary committees on the student activists, not mean enmity and hatred? How can university officials and authorities of the ministry of science allow university students such as Ali Azizi, Abbass Hakimzadeh and Majid Tavakoli be prohibited from entering into the university?

They have left no psychological tranquility for the students. In a totally illegal move, the scholastic file of students is closed. They send threat messages to our families. In a totally vicious move they destroy the student assembly building, the members’ property and personal information is confiscated. They turn the university into a war zone and put students under constant intelligence/military surveillance. Are we then the ones who cause tension in the university environment?

They even fear the enclosed university environment where information flows freely. With all the arrest and restrictions on publishing students’ periodicals, how can Ahmadinejad claim that he accepts the voice of opposition?

How did Ahmadinejad dare to accuse university students of being lackeys of the U.S. or Zionists? What documentation can he produce as a proof of such an accusation?

We students will not tolerate such talk; for this reason we demand the full and uncensored broadcast of the film footage of Ahmadinejad’s speech at our university via the so-called national media so that the world can judge for itself who the real enemies of the people are and who the foreign agents are.

Indeed, we have decided to take our futures into our own hands.

* Stars are being given to students for punishment. "Students with stars"
describes students who have been expelled or suspended from a university. The term became prevalent after several students said university officials had refused to register them for the new academic year, telling them that they have two or three stars. Student protestors and activists say more than 250 students have been affected thus far. The “admission committee” in charge of picking out the students who get the stars is made up agents of the ministry of intelligence and security of the Islamic regime.