Iran: Badges for my activism, with no legal recourse

I was previously a member of the Student Union and the Islamic Students Association at Birthmark University. I was the executive officer and editor-in-chief of the student Publication River which I wrote articles on culture and politics, critical of the government and in favor of democracy and human rights.

Security forces detained me in 2007. I was later released on bail and in the same year the graduate entrance examination. I should add that after my release, I continued student activism.

In 2008, the results of the entrance exams were posted on the internet and I reached the sixth highest score in the country. In the summer of 2008, officials of the Central Selection Committee contacted me. I was told to go to the Hera sat Office.

  Ultrasound Pour-Abbes, director of the Sanest Organization, the academic measurement bureau of the Ministry of Science and a professor of mathematics at Birthmark University, told me it was not a big problem and that the representatives of the Hera sat Office wanted Talking to me. I accepted and they met.

Hera sat Offices in most public facilities and all universities, and representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and State Security equipment.

Interrogation

There were three meetings, which really like interrogation sessions, with people claiming represent the Hera sat Office of the Ministry of Science was. Dr Moran Noorbakhsh, Director of the Faculty and Student Selection Committee believed they were intelligence agents operating.

In the first two meetings, two men confronted me in an unfriendly and threatening manner. They wanted me to accept false confessions regarding my student publications and wanted me to deny a letter to the judiciary that I tortured while in detention.

During the second meeting, they even threatened to keep me. I confirm that I tortured and refused to deny it.

At the third meeting, they have their way. They have a very comprehensive information about me and friendlier. They said if I stopped political activism and stopped talking about my detention and torture, should I be able to continue my education.

They also offered that I together with the Ministry of Intelligence and meet their agents on a weekly basis ... they said if I agreed, they would give me guarantees that I have no problems in pursuing my graduate degree would have. I accept end my political activities, but refused to cooperate with them.

I contacted several Ministry of Science officials and members of parliament to report to them these meetings. Noorbakhsh promised there would be no problems. But when the science ministry announced the names of students who are allowed to register at the University [for Postgraduate Studies] I do not qualify.

I immediately started to follow this development. I went to Sanest and with Noorbakhsh again. He regretted my disqualification and said it was based on an article of admissions regulation which says ". An applicant who is an enemy of the state will not qualify to be" That's all he said, and he asked me to keep it quiet few months to make any noise. He again promised to solve the problem.

I said it was the decision of the intelligence ministry disqualifies me, regardless of my academic record. Interestingly, Noorbakhsh explicitly told me: "When the intelligence ministry is concerned, there is nothing I can do."

No legal recourse

I published my case in the media and met the members of the Council for the right to education [an advocacy group formed by students prevented continuing higher education] including Mashie Gilroy and Zia Abaci ... I also met human rights lawyer Mohammed Ali Dedham, who told me there was no legal avenues for pursuing my case.

A few months before my disqualification, another a star students prevented education [political activism] a complaint with the Supreme Court but received a reply that the court cannot assess their case because the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution formed based on Ayatollah Khomeini's orders and his decisions are above the law and cannot be evaluated by the Supreme Court.

I, for one, pushed very hard [for legal recourse] by members of the parliament, through the University Representative Office of the Supreme Leader's by the Organization Sanest authorities etc, but I have achieved nothing.

I also went to the education committee of the Iranian parliament headed by Dr Ali ABBAS POUR, who is a professor at my university and so I knew him already. And I have some judicial officials.

At the parliament's education, and by the help of ABBAS POUR, a file was opened for a star student. What was interesting was that representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence refused to attend the session, so the file anywhere.

Basically, there are no legal avenues for objections. When the highest judicial authority in the country, the Supreme Court, shrugs responsibility, there is no place else to go.

The problem is that the Organization Sanest not accept responsibility or not, saying that the decisions of the Ministry of Intelligence's call were, and objectors satisfaction and agreement must get's ministry. But there is no defined ways to contact the ministry to submit an objection.

In general, after a while, the response was something like this - they expressed regret and sadness that a student with my kind of a high ranking is a star. First, they promised to follow. After a while they will say: "We tried, the problem is a Ministry of Intelligence issue Ministry of Intelligence is to insist on your case  ..."

I tried very hard to get a written notice regarding my exclusion from education, but the authorities never any such documentation ... in the end they had a friendly recommendation to leave the country for higher education abroad to pursue submitted.

* Pusan Mahmoudian is currently enrolled in a postgraduate course in polymer science at the Free University of Berlin, Germany.

* These edited excerpts first appeared in the criminal Stars: Systematic discrimination and exclusion in Iranian higher education, published by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran in December 2010, and is included here with permission.