IRAN: Post-election violence spreads to universities

Violence spread from Tehran to the outer provinces and several universities reported clashes between students and security forces, according to UPI. Chancellor of Shiraz University, Mohammad Hadi Sadeghi, resigned from his post last Wednesday after riot police stormed a library and fired tear gas inside.

UPI News confirmed that in Mashhad, the Basij militia and Ansar-e Hezbollah militant group clashed with students at Ferdowsi University while universities in Sistan-Baluchestan, Kermanshah and Mazandaran also reported unrest.

John Lyons, a correspondent for The Australian newspaper in Tehran, reported on Friday that students had been slaughtered at Tehran University by suspected members of the Basij militia, as defiant opposition supporters held a new rally to mourn slain protesters."The regime has attempted to cover up the killings - in which the students were believed to have been stabbed and bashed - but a public split by senior members ofthe regime triggered a rare confirmation," Lyons wrote.

He said dozens of academics from the university had resigned in outrage over the incident. Unconfirmed reports said scores of people had been killed or seriously injured following mass demonstations against the election result.

IRAN: Doctors remain in prison

Copies of court documents obtained by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran show that prosecutors failed to prove the guilt of Dr Kamiar Alaei and Dr Arash Alaei. The brothers were sentenced to jail terms in January after being convicted of working with the US government to instigate a 'soft revolution'.

According to the Rights Campaign, the court rulings demonstrate considerable reliance on implicit 'confessions' the Alaei brothers vehemently deny ever making. The 'confessions' reportedly include information about preparations and planning for international seminars, for which there are no laws criminalising such activities in Iran.

The campaign said the judge had construed all cultural and educational exchanges with American institutions as a front for US intelligence activities, without noting that the Iranian government had encouraged and participated in some of these events. Both brothers were found guilty of communicating with an 'enemy government'.

AUSTRALIA: Student attacks create India-Australia tensions

The Australian government claims the country is safe for Indian students despite a number of vicious attacks in recent weeks. According to CNN, at least 10 Indian students have been attacked over the past month and the most severe case left one student in a coma. Australian authorities say they do not believe the attacks are racially motivated but are instead crimes of opportunity against students who travel alone at night on public transport.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made several statements, insisting the attacks are isolated incidents. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Australian government to take action to safeguard India's students. The Australians responded with a 10-point action plan to help safeguard students.

CHINA: Dissident writer Liu Xiaobo held after sentence ends

Dissident writer Liu Xiaobo has been kept in detention in an undisclosed Beijing location, despite finishing a six-month sentence, The Times reports. Liu was taken away by police on 8 December last year, a day before the publication of a document he co-authored with more than 300 intellectuals, appealing for a new constitution, human rights, elections, freedom of religion and expression, and an end to the Communist Party's hold over the military, courts and government.

Liu's lawyer, Mo Shaoping, called on the authorities to free his client or charge him formally, citing limits to soft detention under Chinese law, The Times said. Liu is a former university professor and his writings have called for civil rights and political reform, making him subject to routine harassment by authorities.

US: Department tackles visa delay for researchers

After many complaints by academics, universities and scientific organisations, the State Department is acting to speed up visa processing for foreign graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. The New York Times reports that deputy assistant secretary of state for consular services, David Donahue, said the department had brought in extra staff to handle a huge backlog of applications and had revised procedures to speed up the review system.

Science and engineering researchers from abroad seeking to obtain or renew visas have been encountering severe delays, causing problems for American universities that rely on foreigners to fill places in graduate and post-doctoral science and engineering programmes. Foreign talent is vital for American laboratories and the visa difficulties have discouraged scientific organisations from holding meetings in the US.

UK: Allow students arrested on terrorism charges to study

Academics have urged Liverpool Hope and Liverpool John Moores universities to provide study materials to four students who were arrested on terrorism charges, The Guardian reports. Four Pakistani students were arrested in April 2009 along with six other Pakistani men also on student visas. They were all released from police custody in May but immediately served with deportation orders.

A letter to the two Liverpool universities, signed by 25 academics, argues that the students came to the UK to better themselves educationally and therefore should be entitled to receive study material during their time of incarceration.

The Guardian said the students' lawyers did not have access to the intelligence the authorities held on their clients. Eight of the men are reported to have been enrolled at a bogus college and some are believed to have been arrested after they were overheard discussing "something suspicious".

* Jonathan Travis is programme officer for the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR). www.nearinternational.org

Comment:
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Dawood Mamedoff