Student Involvement in Recent Nationwide Protests Met with State Repression in Iran

Protestors gathered near the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal/Getty Images.

University students have played a central role in the nationwide protests in Iran in the past month, which have been severely repressed by the Iranian government, leading to the deaths of 3,117 people according to the government, while the UN special rapporteur on Iran estimated that the actual death toll could be around 20,000. Unlike previous protests, this protest wave was not initiated by students, but that has not stopped students from constituting one of the main groups that have been mobilizing.

The initial reaction of the Iranian state to heavy student involvement in protests included a range of measures intended to reduce the public presence of students, such as postponing exams, turning to online education, or closing down parts of universities at which students gather. In the initial days of nationwide protests, on Wednesday, December 31, 2025, universities were closed in 18 provinces across the country, in addition to state facilities and marketplaces, as part of a governmental effort to “conserve energy and ensure safety in cold weather.” The same day, classes were moved online at Allameh Tabataba’i University and Shahid Beheshti University, citing similar reasons. The eventual shutdown of internet and phone networks, which followed, “paralyzed” higher education institutions that depend on online instruction to continue education.

Continued student involvement in protest was followed by the targeted repression of students. On December 30, 2025, five students were arrested at a protest at the University of Tehran. Additionally, on January 5, 2026, University of Biriand dorms were raided by security forces, and 10 students were arrested. Another two students from the University of Tehran were also similarly arrested.

One of the main instruments of repression of the Iranian state is the Student Basij, the volunteer paramilitary wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, organized at the university level and in close collaboration with campus security. The state uses the Basij militia to attack and repress student protestors across Iran’s universities during recurrent protest waves. Most recently, a student was attacked and injured by members of the Basij militia at Amirkabir University during an on-campus protest on December 30, 2025. The usage of state-backed paramilitary groups at universities is common across authoritarian regimes, such as the recently disbanded Chhatra League in Bangladesh or the National Union of Syrian Students under the recently dissolved Assad regime in Syria.

While numbers are scarcely available and uncertain, Iranwire reported on January 22, 2026, that at least 15 student protestors were killed by Iranian security forces. The actual number could be much higher, given a recent statement by an Iranian member of parliament that approximately 17 percent of total protestors were teenagers, with the share of those under 20 reaching as high as 45 percent in some localities.

The intensity of the Iranian government’s repression of academic freedom is further demonstrated in the subjection of students and academics to death sentences and executions. Recently, on December 20, 2025, a student was executed, charged with spying for Israel. Another example is the case of Ehsan Faridi, a 22-year-old student and activist who is at risk of being executed after the Iranian Supreme Court approved the death sentence against him in October 2025 for the crime of “corruption on Earth.” Serious procedural irregularities regarding his detention and trial, as well as the dubiousness of the evidence on which the death sentence was based supports suspicions that he is being unduly punished for his activism. Another case is that of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian scholar who has been under arrest since 2016, charged with spying for Israel and currently at risk of being executed. According to Amnesty International, Djalali was convicted after a “grossly unfair trial based on forced ‘confessions’ made under torture and other ill-treatment, including threats to execute him and kill or otherwise harm his family.”

Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) forcefully condemns the unjust targeting of university students and academics in Iran by state forces, including detentions, arrests, extrajudicial physical punishment, and death sentences. We further condemn the restriction of student access to university campuses as part of efforts to quell student activism. We invite the global community to join our call.