TEHRAN -- Iranian university students on Sunday staged mass rallies to express solidarity with pro-Palestine academic demonstrations across the United States and Europe demanding an end to Israel’s months-long genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The university students, professors, and personnel in Iran held gatherings on their academic campuses after noon prayers to condemn Israeli crimes and atrocities in Gaza over the past seven months.
Students of Tabriz University in northwest Iran held a rally dubbed “the Awakened Conscience” in defense of the Palestinian people’s rights and in condemnation of the occupying regime’s crimes.
In central Iran, students in the city of Yazd also lend their support to the protest rallies held in U.S. and European universities, which have faced harsh crackdown by the police during the past weeks.
Similar demonstrations were staged in dozens of other Iranian cities, including Abadan, Ilam, Isfahan, and Lahijan.
“Academics all over the world, especially American and Western countries, have established humanitarian movements in defense of humanity and human rights, and launched a strong wave of support for the oppressed people of Gaza,” Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology said in a statement.
“On this occasion, our country’s dear academics, by organizing large gatherings after offering prayers in mosques and main squares of universities, will voice their support for the professors and students protesting the crimes of Israel’s child-killing regime,” it added.
Students and staff members of the University of Tehran held a rally on Saturday in support of growing protests on US campuses where students have erected encampments over the past days to demand action to end Israel’s war on Gaza.
Chanting “death to America, “death to Israel” and “death to England”, the demonstrators on Saturday condemned violent U.S. police attacks on students.
More than 20 universities in the U.S. and several others in Europe are protesting against the Washington-backed Israeli onslaught.
Iran’s top human rights official on Sunday condemned the United States’ violent treatment of professors and students, saying the suppression emboldens the occupying regime to continue atrocities.
Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, made the remarks in a letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
“The violent crackdown on student movements by the United States and other Western governments is without doubt in line with their policy of openly supporting 
the Zionist regime’s killings and war crimes,” he said, warning that such an approach will encourage Israel to “continue warmongering, genocide and crimes against humanity in the occupied territories.”
“Attempts to suppress and silence the voices of protesting professors and students and intimidate them ... are in flagrant contradiction to the [Western] countries’ obligation to guarantee free speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, prohibition of arbitrary arrest, and the right to education under international treaties and conventions,” he added.
Gharibabadi expressed the support of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights for the student movement in the U.S., urging the Türk to condemn the suppression of peaceful protests and back mechanisms that promote their goals.
He further expressed regret that the U.S. has used its political, financial, and media capacities to cover up the Israeli crimes in Gaza and provided all-round military and intelligence support for the occupying regime.
“Instead of listening to … professors and students, the US government has … resorted to extreme force in a bid to suppress the protest movement. Other pro-Zionist Western governments, including France, Britain, and Germany, have also adopted the same approach,” Gharibabadi said.
The heavy-handed clampdown shows the Western countries’ “lies and hypocritical” approach towards freedom of expression and human rights, he noted.