Recommendations
Next Section: List of 217 Barred and Expelled Students
To the Government of Iran:
• Ensure students and university applicants can exercise their right to expression, association, assembly and religious freedom without interference by authorities and without having fear of persecution, arrests or being expelled or denied university admissions.
• Establish a formal mechanism, within the Ministry of Science, that allows students to appeal decisions of the Central Selection Committee. Ensure this mechanism has independent power to overrule decisions of the Committee.
• Re-instate students barred from education based on their political or religious beliefs or activities. Ensure such students can seek financial restitution in civil courts.
• Release all students detained and prosecuted for activities related to, or advocating on behalf of, those deprived of education.
• Release all student activist and prisoners of conscience that have been detained and prosecuted for exercising their freedom of expression, assemble, and association.
To the Iranian Parliament:
• Launch an impartial investigation, conducted by a committee including representatives of independent student associations, to review all cases of students barred or expelled on allegedly political and discriminatory grounds. This committee should hold public hearings and bring students who allege being subjected to such bars and expulsions to testify. The committee should have the power to subpoena members of the executive branch and security authorities to testify.
• Expand the jurisdiction of civil courts so they can adjudicate cases brought by students regarding deprivation of education.
• Amend all university admissions regulations so to remove any discriminatory or arbitrary criteria for disqualification including religious requirements and vague determinations that an applicant is an “enemy” of the Islamic Republic.
• Amend all university admissions regulations so to remove any role for non-educational bodies, namely the Ministry of Intelligence.
• Amend university rules and regulations, including Disciplinary Committee regulations that allow for suspension of students on discriminatory, vague and arbitrary grounds, including insulting Islamic and national beliefs or acting against national security.
To the Iranian Prosecutor General and Judiciary:
• Investigate, prosecute and hold accountable members of the Ministry of Intelligence responsible for threatening, intimidating, arresting, persecution and expelling student activists based on political and ideological grounds.
• Adjudicate civil claims brought by students regarding deprivation of education. Provide financial restitution for students that suffered undue delays in attaining degrees or losing academic credit because of illegal deprivation of education.
To the Universities and Institution of Higher Learning Outside Iran Partnering Universities:
• Require partner Iranian universities provide a transparent account of any exclusionary policies.
• Provide admission and scholarships to Iranian students barred from Iranian universities.
