Tehran University's southern and main entrance gate, Oct. 13, 2019. The killing of a university student on Feb. 12, 2025, sparked a protest at the school.
Iran orders probe into killing of university student during robbery
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES —
Iran’s vice president ordered a probe Saturday into the killing of a university student after a protest at Tehran University, state media reported.
A report by the official IRNA news agency said First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref ordered security officials to probe the case “immediately.”
The move came a day after angry students gathered in protest at a Tehran University dormitory seeking more safety measures. The protest briefly turned violent, and police deployed forces to the gate of the dorm, according to videos on social media. The Associated Press could not independently verify the footage.
Protesters, chanting “Shame on you,” demanded more safety measures at the dorm and its neighborhood, complaining about occasional robberies.
On Wednesday, 19-year-old business administration student Amir Mohammad Khaleghi was stabbed by two unknown robbers who stole his backpack in front of the dorm. Khaleghi died in the hospital.
Peace returned to the dorm late Friday after authorities vowed to pursue the case with a “special” order.
Although the protest was not politically motivated, such events can ignite unrest as Iranian people under U.S. economic sanctions are dealing with the high price of meeting their daily needs, as well as widespread mismanagement.
Iranian universities have a history of protest over the past decades.
Most recently, in 2022, universities were major sites of protest over the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after she was detained by the morality police for allegedly not wearing the Muslim headscarf correctly.
The protests that followed Amini’s death started first with the chant “Woman, Life, Freedom.” However, the protesters’ cries soon grew into open calls of revolt against the incumbent theocracy. The monthslong nationwide protests, which shook the establishment, ended in early 2023 after a security crackdown during which more than 500 people were killed and over 22,000 detained.
In 1999, student protests in Tehran over the government’s closing of a reformist newspaper and a subsequent security force crackdown saw several people killed, hundreds wounded and more arrested.
Lebanon blocked an Iranian airliner from flying into Beirut Thursday after Israel accused Iran a day earlier of using civilian flights to deliver cash to Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
The chief executive of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, Saeed Chalandri, told Iranian state news agency Mehr that the Mahan Air flight to Beirut was canceled before takeoff because Lebanon had not granted it permission to land.
In a video posted on X by an Iran-based journalist and deemed credible by VOA Persian, the passengers could be seen waiting in a departure hall designated for religious pilgrims, with one man shouting in frustration at being stuck there.
In a Thursday statement published by Lebanon’s National News Agency, Beirut’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said the government was asking some airlines to “temporarily reschedule” flights to Lebanon while it implements “some additional security measures.” The civil aviation office did not immediately respond to a VOA request, emailed Friday, for comment on which airlines had been asked to reschedule and how many flights were affected.
The statement said Lebanon also was working with its national carrier, Middle East Airlines, to send a plane to Tehran to bring the stranded passengers home.
The moves followed a Wednesday Arabic statement by Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee, accusing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force of exploiting civilian flights to Beirut airport to smuggle cash to its main proxy, Hezbollah, without oversight by the Lebanese government.
Iran’s U.N. Mission in New York did not immediately respond to a VOA request, emailed on Thursday, for comment on the Israeli allegation.
Mahan Air is sanctioned by the United States as part of a long-running U.S. effort to target entities that fund and arm Hezbollah.
Researcher David Daoud of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies told VOA he has tracked 26 Mahan Air flights from Iran to Beirut since December 1. He said Thursday’s cancelation was the first time Lebanon blocked one the airline’s flights since letting it resume service to Beirut following a November 27 ceasefire in a yearlong conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah initiated the conflict with Israel in October 2023 in solidarity with Palestinian terror group Hamas, before agreeing to the ceasefire under pressure from an Israeli offensive that had begun in September 2024 and killed its top leaders.
Adraee said Israel provided information to a U.S.-led group monitoring the ceasefire to try to stop Iran flying cash to Hezbollah, which he said already had received some of the funds. But the Israeli military refused to comment on whether it had contacted the ceasefire monitoring group to urge Lebanon to block Thursday’s flight.
The ceasefire obliges the Lebanese government to assert sovereignty over the country and prevent Hezbollah and other armed groups from receiving “arms and related material” through border crossings and attacking Israel. It does not explicitly mention deliveries of cash to Hezbollah. Israel also is obligated to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon as Lebanese government forces deploy in the region.
Adraee said the Israeli military "will not allow [Hezbollah] to build up its forces and will use all available means to enforce the ceasefire understandings and ensure the security of [Israel's] citizens." It was the strongest statement that Israel has made on Iranian cash deliveries to Hezbollah since the recent conflict began.
Daoud said Adraee's warning "put the Lebanese on notice that the Israelis are watching the Beirut airport and know funds for Hezbollah are coming through these Iranian flights."
"Suddenly, there is movement at the Beirut airport," he said, in reference to Lebanese authorities denying landing rights to the Mahan Air flight. “This is part of a pattern in which the Israelis call out them out, and the Lebanese do something that makes them look like they are acting. But the issue is consistency."
FILE - A plane of Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), prepares to take off from Beirut International airport on Aug. 5, 2024.
Daoud said Lebanon could demonstrate consistency if it bans Mahan Air from flying to Beirut. Short of that step, he said Lebanon also could subject the airline's passengers and cargo to sustained high scrutiny on arrival.
Matthew Levitt, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in a VOA interview that the Mahan Air flight cancelation is “welcome news.”
“This is how the Lebanese government will reassert sovereignty over the country, if it continues to move in this direction. And that is not a guarantee,” he said.
This article was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian service.
