Where have the detained students been taken?

Where have the detained students been taken?

Where have the detained students been taken? Concerns about the unknown situation of the detained students, especially after the incident at the girls’ school in Ardabil and the strange statements by the Minister of Education, have intensified. The attack on schools, beating and arresting students, and even the arrest of a principal who refused to cooperate with security forces is an unprecedented event in the contemporary history of Iran and unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has occurred these days.

Denial of beating and death of Ardabili students

Alongside the release of videos and news of security forces entering some schools to arrest students, the incident at a school in Ardabil, which reportedly led to the death of one student, another going into a coma, and the arrest of several others, has sparked numerous reactions. However, the Director-General of Education and the Security Director of this province have denied any news of police intervention in schools or the death of a student in this context, calling it pure lies.

Nevertheless, the released videos and images at least show that the situation in one of the city’s schools was not normal. The video shows a group of students chanting slogans while an ambulance is present at the school.

Another video of an ambulance leaving the school has been released, along with a picture of an ill student. The names of two students, along with the obituary of one of them, have also been published, but the education and provincial authorities have not yet provided any explanation for these videos or the reason for the student’s death.

However, Sina Ghanbarpour, a social journalist, wrote on Twitter that he contacted his friends in Ardabil who were worried about the missing students. Besides, angry parents went to Meraj School and clashed with school officials, demanding clarity on the missing students. In this context, a joint statement attributed to a group of students and residents of Ardabil has been published on social media.

The statement mentions that the beating of students followed their refusal to shout dictated slogans in a compulsory march. On social media, the names of two schools and their two female principals have been linked to the recent incidents.

Teachers’ Union’s attack on the Minister of Education

The painful point is that the Minister of Education claimed he does not have accurate statistics on the detained students or does not want to disclose them. The same minister confirms that some detained students have been referred to psychological centers for correction and education to prevent them from becoming anti-social characters. Mohammad Bathaei, the Minister of Education under Rouhani’s government, merely requested in a tweet that an experienced teacher or educational psychologist be present during the students’ interrogation.

The Iranian Teachers’ Union has also condemned the anti-cultural remarks of the Minister of Education regarding the transfer of protesting students to correctional centers and his lack of awareness of the number of detainees. The statement says instead of defending the school’s domain and students, you justify the illegal entry of security forces into schools and even the arrest of students in the streets. What defense did you make for the honorable principal who refused to hand over CCTV footage to security forces and was arrested in front of students?

The Teachers’ Union, strongly condemning these foolish behaviors that they believe will lead to militarizing educational spaces and stripping the scientific and cultural nature of classrooms, further wrote that if this trend contrary to law and custom continues, teachers, families, and professional associations consider it their duty to defend the sacred structure of the school in any way they deem appropriate.

The place for a protesting student is not a correctional center

However, according to the Ham Mihan newspaper, in recent days, verbal and written instructions have been given to principals to release students from school one by one and at intervals to prevent gatherings. School officials have been told that if a school has two doors, they should halve the number of students and release them one by one from both doors at intervals. For classes without teachers at certain times, external forces, usually introduced by the Basij, are used to talk to students in the classrooms.

Published reports indicate that detained students in protest gatherings have been transferred to correctional centers. Meanwhile, these centers are designated for holding delinquent children under 18. Nowhere in the law is it written that a student or child should be arrested and transferred to a correctional center for chanting slogans.

Mohammadreza Niknejad, a teacher and teachers’ union activist, also referring to the Minister of Education’s statements, said that the correctional center is for delinquents, not for education and counseling. He stated that we know the pressure on school principals and deputies is very high now. Schools have disciplinary regulations that are old and should be followed, but now many meetings are held with school principals. In the regions, it has been hierarchically told to principals that they are responsible for the schools and should act independently.

Maryam Kian Arthi, a lawyer, also told the Ham Mihan newspaper that last Tuesday she visited the Tehran correctional center and found a large number of teenagers under 18 who had been arrested in recent protests. She said that among all those teenagers, they were only able to represent 15 of them legally.

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