Tehran University Professor "Arrested" As Students Defy Crackdown

Iranian authorities have arrested a professor of economics at Tehran University, the Payam-e-Eghtesad news website reports, amid continued strikes in academic institutions across the country.

Security forces on Wednesday morning stormed Davood Sori's house in the capital, confiscated his phone and laptop, and transferred him to the notorious Evin prison, it said.

Sori's reported arrest comes after several Iranian professors were interrogated after voicing support for the ongoing wave of anti-government protests.

Dariush Farhud, known as the "father of Iranian genetic science," confirmed he was kidnapped on October 30 by unknown security agents and interrogated for more than a day before being released.

And on October 26, a prominent professor of Persian literature, Iraj Mehraki, was prevented from entering the Islamic Azad University of Karaj. University officials told him he was “not qualified to teach.”

Young men and women, including university students, have been at the forefront of the nationwide protest movement sparked by the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.

Despite a brutal crackdown in universities and other higher education institutions, students on Wednesday continued to defy orders to return to class and staged rallies on several campuses across the country.

The largely peaceful demonstrations have grown to become the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical regime since the 2009 protest movement.

The heavy-handed crackdown unleashed by security forces on the unrest has killed at least 253 people, including 34 children, according to Iran Human Rights. Several thousand people have been arrested.