Iranian college students have continued anti-government demonstrations even after the government used force to extinguish huge nationwide protests that had spread across the country. The unrest has persisted on campuses in recent days, with anti-government gatherings documented at multiple universities as authorities warn students against escalating actions.
According to an exiled Iranian activist who tracks the student movement, anti-government demonstrations were held on at least 10 campuses in the past week. Four students and witnesses described what they saw, and the Associated Press verified social media videos for multiple campuses, with students speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation.
The AP verification found unrest at Sharif University of Technology and Amir Kabir University, where videos circulating online showed scuffles breaking out between what appeared to be pro-government supporters and protesters. On both campuses, protesters yelled “Shameless! Shameless!” — a chant used to taunt security forces and plainclothes agents, including members of the Basij, the volunteer arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that maintains a presence on university campuses through student groups.
On Monday, the AP verified videos showing chants and anti-government slogans at the all-female Al Zahra University in northern Tehran. The same day, students at the University of Tehran’s College of Foreign Languages held a demonstration in which participants stamped feet and chanted, “For each person killed, a thousand stand behind them!” The gathering began as a memorial for a student killed during January protests, according to the AP reporting.
The campus demonstrations have revived fears of a new crackdown at a time when Iran faces additional external pressure. The AP said the unrest comes as the Iranian government, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, faces threats of military action by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program. Students and universities are also operating under heightened warnings from Iranian officials and hard-line leadership figures.
On Tuesday, Iran’s government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani warned students to be careful not to cross a “red line,” according to semiofficial Mehr news agency. Iran’s state television also aired a statement attributed to the president of Sharif University that apologized for “inappropriate” events on campus, as authorities sought to frame the protests as misconduct rather than political dissent.
On Wednesday, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, the cleric who heads Iran’s judiciary, said judicial authorities would get involved in persecuting “crimes” on campuses if educational authorities were unable to control protests, according to comments carried in state media. The AP said Ejehi has become a prominent public face of the recent crackdown, which included calls for fast-tracking punishments for protesters.
Students and the activist who tracks the movement also described additional restrictions affecting campus life. Iranian universities, the AP reported, have barred some students from campus and held disciplinary hearings, which in the past have led to expulsions and sometimes bans on further university study.
The renewed unrest reflects a longer pattern in which Iranian university students have repeatedly helped propel anti-government protests. The AP said campus activism played a role in demonstrations in 1999, in protests supporting reformist leaders in 2008-2009, and in openly anti-government demonstrations in 2022 that shifted toward calls for overthrowing Iran’s theocracy.
For many students, repression and the shrinking space for organizing has fed anger and uncertainty about whether change is possible. A doctoral student at the University of Tehran told the AP that hard-liners’ refusal to make policy changes, combined with economic strain, has led some college-age students to conclude the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed. A social sciences student at Tehran University said repression has blocked organized opposition inside the country and said that after 2022, “around 70% of student associations were closed,” including one he had led.
The AP reporting also described how political ideas around the exiled Reza Pahlavi have found new supporters among some students, even amid continuing risks and disagreements. The student said Pahlavi had become “a serious political cause for some people in Iran,” and the AP described mixed memories of the shah’s rule, along with nostalgia for the period’s economic prosperity growing among some.
As the prospect of conflict with the United States increases, students said fears of war are also rising on campuses. A student at a university in the northern city of Babol told the AP that his personal hope is for a “democratic secular republic” in Iran, but he worried that armed conflict could worsen suffering and “increase the risks of the country’s disintegration.” At the University of Tehran, another student described opposition to students who support Pahlavi partly because the exiled opposition figure has called for a U.S. strike on Iran, adding, “I’ll never understand a person who sits in London yelling for America to bomb Iran. How will they accept responsibility for what happens tomorrow?”