IRAN: Student activism endures a year after crackdown

A handful of protests, including reportedly violent clashes at two of Tehran's leading universities, marked the anniversary last weekend of the disputed presidential election in Iran that ignited a wave of unrest last year, convulsing the country for weeks with widespread anti-government demonstrations, writes Aisha Labi for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

An opposition gathering that had been planned for Saturday was called off the day before by Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition candidate whose defeat by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what the government called a decisive victory and the opposition deemed fraud, sparked last year's movement.

But in e-mail messages from the University of Tehran, a student who has been active in the opposition movement described gatherings that began peacefully with silent protest but drew violent reprisals from the police and university security forces. At his university, he said, campus guards arrested and beat at least 11 students before turning them over to the police.
Full report on The Chronicle of Higher Education site