Aryan Society News Agency – Gholamhossein Mohseni-Eje’i, head of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, announced in a meeting with a group of teachers that about 90,000 judicial cases were filed during the nationwide protests of 1401. He acknowledged that a significant number of those prosecuted were students, university students, and teachers. According to Ejei, criminal records were not registered for many of these individuals, and some of them were also granted amnesty. However, these extensive statistics themselves indicate the severity of arrests and the broad involvement of the judiciary in the country’s educational institutions; a process that has seriously threatened the right to education, freedom of expression, and the mental security of the educational community.
In this meeting, Mohseni Ejei announced the targeted use of the capacities of Basij, seminaries, teachers, and university professors for the “guidance” and “remorse induction” of detainees. According to his statements, these individuals, by being present in detention centers, tried to create conditions for “discipline,” “reform,” and then “pardoning” of the detainees. This action indicates the use of ideological and cultural pressures to forcibly change the mindset of detainees.
Simultaneously, the judiciary has utilized the education system and teachers as part of the “judicial disengagement” process, summoning them to detention centers to play the role of “legal companions.” This has blurred the traditional boundaries of the teaching profession and reduced teachers’ roles to tools for implementing judicial policies.
During the same meeting, some teachers and educational experts warned about the security policies enforced in the educational environment and criticized the early criminalization of teenagers. Relying on field data, they emphasized that many teenagers are more victims of social crises and lack of legal awareness than actual criminals.
Despite these criticisms, evidence indicates the continued systematic exploitation of the educational environment for ideological and security purposes. Examples include active presence of religious institutions in prisons, Quran education programs for inmates, and mass dispatch of students to Rahian-e Noor camps—actions critics say aim to engineer thoughts and mentally control students.