A student’s murder in Tehran should remind Iran’s leaders they have enough trouble at home

Amir Mohammad Khalegi. Photo: LinkedIn

The list of grievances Iranians hold against their security forces is so long that it’s hard to predict which ones could lead to protests at any given moment. A recent impetus was a brutal murder that doesn’t seem to be political at the first glance but, like many things in Iran, it ultimately is.

Amir Mohammad Khalegi, a 19-year-old sophomore at the prestigious University of Tehran, was starting a new semester on February 12 when he was brutally attacked near his dormitory. The assailants, two men on motorcycles, took his laptop, mobile phone and cash. These items were a small fortune for him, especially as he came from a humble family. When he resisted the thieves, they stabbed him in his shoulders, sides and chest. A passerby found him, and he was taken to a hospital, but he died the morning after.

The murder led to massive student anger due to its context. For years, students have warned that the alleyways around the University of Tehran’s dorms are not safe. But the police seems much more proactive at monitoring student activity or arresting women who are not observing the mandatory veiling code than going after actual criminals.

A general view of the street where Amirmohammad Khaleqi, an Iranian student was killed during a robbery, in Tehran, last week. Reuters

Students have long made demands for police patrols, better lighting and surveillance cameras in the back alleys, near the dorm but to no avail. There was even less police attention than usual as security forces were busy preparing for a political rally the day after. The rally was to mark 14 years of house detention for dissident figures Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist politician, Mirhossein Mousavi, the former prime minister of Iran, and his wife, the artist and academic Zahra Rahnavard. The message was familiar and clear: the police was ready to arrest students if they demonstrated while leaving them defenceless against violent street crimes.

The details of college student Amir Mohammad’s life soon spread, especially after his account on X was discovered and this increased both heartache and anger. He hailed from a Sunni family (Iran’s largest religious minority) in Darmian, a small village in South Khorasan province. Just 1600 people lived in the village, only a small number of whom had received any schooling at all. For a son of this village to make it to the country’s most prestigious university was a great achievement. Amir Mohammad gained his place by scoring among the top 800 test-takers in the national examination and was studying for a business management degree. On X, he wrote about his dreams of going to Tehran and building a start-up one day.

In the aftermath of his murder, the university authorities first lied about it. They claimed he had been killed somewhere far from the university. But the truth soon became clear and the incensed students came out to protest. On February 14, a rally at the University of Tehran’s dormitory areas saw hundreds of students clash with security forces. At least one of them was arrested while another had his nose broken by the police. The protests continued the day after with slogans such as “dignified student, show us your support!” and “the students are awoken, and they hate tyranny!”

On February 16, students issued a list of 18 demands, mostly around the security of their campus. For many people in Tehran, the student rally was eerily reminiscent of 1999, when protests took place at the exact same place. At that time, Iran’s plainclothes forces brutally attacked the dormitories and killed seven students, throwing some out of their dorms’ windows.

This time around, authorities were careful to try to contain the movement. The university’s acting chancellor, Hossein Hossein, came to the rally and called on students to avoid repeating the tragedy of 1999.

Fatemeh Mohajerani, the spokesperson for President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government, said a deputy minister had been dispatched to speak to the students. She called on “all sides to keep calm and keep open the avenue of dialogue”.

A day after the protests, the university voted to install new cameras in the streets leading to the dorms. On February 17, the two assailants were arrested and quickly confessed to up to 40 counts of robbery and theft in the past three months.

The student protests have subsided for now but the message to the authorities was that they can reignite at any time. The dramatic tone of protesting students, and slogans such as “nothing can wash away blood” shows the reservoir of discontent. Throughout modern Iranian history, students have often been the harbinger of social movements and protests. The current times are no exception.

The opposition leaders abroad quickly tried to use the student protests to revitalise the anti-establishment mood in Iran. Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s exiled former crown prince, in a post on X, wrote that Amir Mohammad’s murder had “once more shown that the Islamic republic is unable to provide the nation with security and it is itself the main cause of insecurity”. He asked "students and professors in universities all over Iran to show solidarity with the protesting students at the University of Tehran".

There are other protests popping up across Iran, too. The small city of Dehdasht in south-western Iran has been home to protests against electricity cuts. According to some reports, the protesters have attacked security forces and used radical slogans. Several young men and women have been arrested while there is not much access to this city of 100,000 people. Even the fact of protests taking place has been denied in the state media. This hasn’t stopped the judiciary from arresting supposed “ringleaders” of these protests.

Whether it’s a lack of proper security for students in Tehran or electricity cuts across the country, protests are an almost perennial feature of life in Iran. On February 18, there was strike action and protest rallies in Fajr Jam refinery in Bushehr, a port on the Gulf. In the week before, the workers at a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr also went on strike as have textile workers in Borujerd and petrochemical workers in the crucial port of Chabahar in south-eastern Iran.

It’s anybody’s guess when some of these protests might spark wider societal movements, like those in 2017, 2019 and 2022-2023. But even as the focus is primarily on Iran’s military and international policy, the domestic front should not be forgotten.