Iran clamps down on school protests over compulsory hijab

LONDON: Iran has begun arresting teenage schoolgirls and students who have taken part in anti-regime protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, according to The Times.

Students who have been protesting the compulsory wearing of the hijab have been arrested and taken to “psychological correctional facilities” for “reform,” said the Iranian education minister.

Police have begun turning up to schools and demanding to see lists of pupils who have taken part in protests, particularly girls. They have met with resistance from some schools, and at least one headmistress has been arrested for refusing to comply.

Yousef Nouri, the education minister, said in an interview with a reformist local newspaper, Sharq: “We don’t have any pupils in prison and those who have been arrested have been referred to psychological centers for correction and education to prevent them from becoming antisocial characters.”

Some of the most dramatic pictures from the last month of protest in Iran have been of schoolgirls and students at all-women universities demonstrating and holding their hijabs high in the air. The protests were triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old student Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by Iran’s morality police for not wearing her headscarf properly.

One parent said the head of a religious school in Tehran, who had been sympathetic to the girls, had been forced to summon a parents’ meeting. She said she had been told to report all absentees and protesting students.

“She told the parents she has not done so until now and trusts all her staff, too, but is fearful of others reporting them and she feels responsible for the well-being of every pupil,” the parent said.

The representative body of teachers’ unions said that one head was arrested on Tuesday for refusing to comply with similar demands. “Mrs Oghabneshin, the director of the Khamenei Girls’ school in Karaj, was arrested in front of the students, for refusing to hand over the CCTV footage to the officers and deleting it,” it said in a statement. “Her fate is unknown.”

At another Tehran school, a teacher described how the Basij, the paramilitary policing arm of the Revolutionary Guard, turned up after the head failed to respond to a request for names. “The Basij came to identify some of the students who stood out through the way they wore their uniform,” the teacher said.

The teachers’ union body had been harshly critical of the education ministry for expecting school leaders to become “the executive arm of the security forces” and backed heads who refused to comply with its demands, a sign of the openness with which the protests are being discussed in the country. It called for more information on what had happened to detained students.

It said at least 28 students had been killed in the wave of protests, though it did not break that down into school-age and university students. At least 23 minors are said to have been killed in the past month across the country, according to human rights groups based outside Iran, which put the total number of deaths from all protests at 201.

In a television appearance, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, repeated his earlier claims that the protests are being stirred up from abroad.

“The actions of the enemy, such as propaganda, trying to influence minds, creating excitement, encouraging and even teaching the manufacture of incendiary materials, are now completely clear,” he said.