Iranian University Students Remain Defiant As Strikes Mark 2019 Protests

Iranians have gone on strike in numerous cities across Iran to commemorate the November 2019 protests over a sudden rise in the price of gasoline that was crushed by security forces in a crackdown in which 1,500 people were reported killed.

The November 15 strikes add to pressure on Iran's clerical regime, which have been battling two months of nationwide unrest triggered by the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police.

Videos shared on social media showed strikes and gatherings in cities including Isfahan, Shiraz, Sanandaj, Hormozgan, Ashnavieh, Miandarreh, Mahabad, Baneh, Javanrood, Kermanshah and parts of the capital, Tehran.

Footage obtained by IranWire from the city of Sanandaj, Kurdistan province’s capital, showed angry workers at an industrial site setting tires on fire. 

Steel workers in Isfahan stood outside their factory to demand wage increases, among other things.

In the Tehran Bazaar, videos showed closed shops with people shouting anti-government slogans.

Meanwhile, university students across the country continued to defy orders to return to class.

Footage obtained by IranWire shows the Azad University of Karaj completely on strike.

Students at Khaajeh Nasir University’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering and at the Tehran Azad University of Science chanted slogans such as "I swear to the blood of my friends, we will stand until the end."

In the capital, sit-ins were held at Beheshti University's Computer Faculty and the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences.

Students have refused to return to class in defiance of authorities' warnings. They are demanding the unconditional release of all arrested students, the prohibition of arrest warrants for the released students, the lifting of recent academic suspensions and the withdrawal of the security forces from campuses.

Young men and women have been at the forefront of the ongoing wave of anti-government demonstrations sparked by the September death of Mahsa Amini’s death.

The security forces have cracked down hard on the protest movement -- one of the boldest challenges to the country's rulers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 326 people have been killed, including 43 children, according to one human rights organization, and thousands of others have been arrested.