Addressing Iran's 25 million school and university students, teachers, professors and others employed in the education sector, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi said: "A secret probe conducted by the regime's judiciary into the circumstances of the mid-July uprising in Tehran discovered that more than 50 percent of those arrested were students between the ages of 14 and 17, while 40 percent were between the ages of 21 and 28. The mullahs' judiciary officials noted the deeply-rooted hatred felt by young people against the mullahs' regime and said: "The young are most distrustful of our system. As the temperament of the detainees shows, this is a very dangerous situation for the Islamic Republic. Each one has the potentials to turn into an ardent enemy of our regime.'"
The Resistance's President-elect elaborated on the destruction of the country's educational system by the ruling mullahs, citing detailed statistics. She referred to the Deputy Minister of Education's statement that "there is a shortage of 221,000 classrooms this year" while pointing out that of the existing classrooms, 250,000 are used for two "shifts" a day.
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized that "girls are facing double deprivations in every area of education. The adviser to the mullahs' Education Minister has admitted that 1,689,000 girl students in rural areas have no access to educational facilities."
The Resistance's President-elect said: "Despite all this, the anti-human mullahs' bigger crime is that they are crushing and killing the soul and spirit of our country's youth under the oppressive coercion and intimidation of an illegitimate, medieval regime."
"Despite Khatami's profuse rhetoric," Maryam Rajavi said, "the mullahs' regime has introduced a series of new draconian measures, including a formal ban on teachers to teach children of the opposite sex over the age of 10. The mullahs have abolished a Committee on Youth and Family Affairs. Even girls in primary schools are being forced to wear the (head-to-toe) chador. As the chairman of the regime's Committee on the Cultural Revolution, Khatami himself has overseen the adoption of new government regulations even controlling toys to ensure gender segregation."
The Resistance's President-elect pointed out that the ruling mullahs were terrified by the potentially explosive fury and frustration felt by the vast majority of the young generation and said: "The mullahs have been issuing warnings to each other especially for the past two months, fearing a repeat of the July uprisings and already calling future uprisings 'Project Riots II'."
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 23, 1999
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