Several people arrested in Iran after student's death triggers protest

Iranian authorities said on Saturday that several suspects had been arrested in the case of a student’s murder that triggered a night of protest at Tehran University.

Amir Mohammad Khaleghi, a 19-year-old business student, was killed by robbers on Wednesday near the university’s dormitory, according to media reports.

The incident has grabbed the nation’s attention and sparked outrage and protests, with students demanding better security on campus.

“Suspects have been arrested in this case, and investigations are ongoing,” Tehran prosecutor Ali Salehi said on Saturday, according to the judiciary’s Mizan Online news website.

Salehi added that authorities are working to apprehend “the perpetrator of this crime as quickly as possible and bring him to justice”.

Protests on Friday attracted dozens of university students. The Ham Mihan daily said on its website that tensions escalated after plainclothes security forces had intervened.

According to official news agency IRNA, President Massoud Pezeshkian has asked Science Minister Hossein Simaei Sarraf “to follow up” on the case.

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Simaei Sarraf said on Saturday that the head of Tehran University’s dormitory management had resigned in the wake of the killing.

The minister also denied reports that students had been arrested following the protests.

Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref has ordered an “urgent and thorough investigation” into Khaleghi’s murder, IRNA said.

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani on Friday addressed the issue on X, stating that “the security of students and the peace of families is a duty and priority for the government.”

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Meanwhile, Tehran University’s caretaker head, Hossein Hosseini, expressed solidarity with students by attending their gathering on Friday night, IRNA reported.

The protests at Tehran University come more than two years after nationwide demonstrations swept Iran following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died three days after her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.

Universities, particularly in Tehran, have been at the forefront of the protests in Iran, including the 1979 protests during the Islamic revolution that toppled US-backed Iran’s shah.

Students in Tehran university also shaped a major wave of protests in 1999 after the closure of a newspaper critical of the government.

Khaleghi’s body was laid to rest on Saturday at his home village in South Khorasan province, in eastern Iran.