Detained Activist Bahareh Hedayat Nominated for Student Peace Prize

Regardless of the fact that I am a feminist myself, BUT, I deeply feel irritated by this nomination as I think of Behrouz Javid Tehrani who has been in prison since he was a student in the past several years and has been the focal point of resisting inhumane tortures in the most barbaric situations so far!


Radio Zamaneh

Iranian student activist Bahareh Hedayat has been nominated for the 2010 Student Peace Prize by the European Students’ Union, an umbrella organization of 45 national unions comprised of students from 35 different countries.

European Students’ Union has announced that they are monitoring the situation of students in Iran and that they have condemned the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on student activists on several occasions.

The statement issued by the European Students’ Union commends Bahareh Hedayat for her persistent struggle against oppression despite her repeated arrests and solitary confinements.

Bahareh Hedayat, who has been arrested on several occasions for her union activities, was last arrested in December 2009 and is currently facing 16 counts of charges including “propagating a negative image of the regime, taking part in post-election protests, talking to foreign media, and insulting the Supreme Leader and the President.”

She is also active in the Iranian women’s rights movement and a founding member of the One Million Signatures Campaign. Bahareh Hedayat has also been instrumental in promoting the Campaign throughout Iranian universities.

She was arrested in 2006 in a protest against unequal rights of women and sentenced to a two-year suspended jail term. She was arrested in the nationwide protests against the allegedly fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009 and later released on a heavy bail.

She was arrested again in December during a gathering in front of Evin prison to stand in solidarity with the families of recent political detainees. Hedayat is currently imprisoned.

The Islamic Republic has arrested numerous Iranian dissidents in an attempt to quell the post-election protests. The student movement has been a major target of these arrests.