For years, Iran’s regime has used totalitarian methods to mold the minds of the younger generation into its regressive image and recruit them into its repressive and terrorist apparatus. But now, it faces a generation that not only rejects these clichés but openly rebels against them. Iranian students have shown that despite decades of the regime’s efforts to distort history, censor Iran’s vibrant culture, and impose backward values, the spirit of freedom and independent thinking remains alive in them. This generation has now turned into an explosive force against the regime.
Students, the driving force of the revolution
Iranian students, led by courageous girls, played a prominent role in the 2022 uprising. Together with university students and youth in every neighborhood, they suspended classes, held protest gatherings, and chanted slogans like “Khamenei is a murderer, his rule is illegitimate,” turning the streets into arenas of resistance. These protests marked the first time since the 1979 anti-monarchy revolution that students took the frontline of a political movement, evoking their historic role in the uprising of that year. Back then, student protests on November 4, 1978, and their bloody suppression by the Shah’s royal guard sparked a wave of public outrage that led to the fall of the Sharif-Emami government and deepened the crisis of the monarchy. Today, with the same spirit of defiance, students have struck fear into the heart of the regime.
This generation, which the regime raised with distorted textbooks and regressive teachings, has rejected the regime’s clichés and instead become a driving force in the struggle against religious despotism.
Police-Education Agreement
In response to this wave of rebellion, the regime has implemented a plan to further securitize schools. On April 20, state-controlled media reported that an agreement was signed between Ahmad Reza Radan, the notorious commander of the police force, and Alireza Kazemi, the submissive education minister in Masoud Pezeshkian’s government. This agreement authorizes the police to officially be present in schools and intervene in educational, social, and cultural matters.
During the signing ceremony, Alireza Kazemi disgracefully referred to himself as “Radan’s soldier” and declared his readiness to carry out any mission dictated by the police. He emphasized that “security, economy, and culture” must be instilled from preschool and spoke of the need for “cultural work” to confront “social harms” and “enemy conspiracies.” These remarks, coming from someone supposedly serving as education minister, reflect the fragile regime’s view of students as threats that must be controlled and suppressed.
Radan also described students as the primary target of the “enemy” and claimed that “cyberspace” and other “events” have “abducted” their minds. These statements, aimed at justifying the police presence in schools reveal the regime’s deep fear of the young generation’s rebellious potential and their capacity to ignite uprisings.
The following remarks by Radan, without need for explanation, clearly reveal regime’s fragility and desperation when it comes to students:
“The timely and structured use of proper organizations with a jihadist and institutional identity can lay the groundwork for everything that is now a concern for the people, families, and police. These are the issues of social harm. Social harm in our country today does not just stem from individual behaviors. Today, this is the enemy’s plan. In some cases, we forget the enemy and become inattentive. Because of this second neglect, we are taken by surprise… The enemy has understood better than us that the most influential stratum in Iranian society is the student… We see that the enemy is influencing students and trying to abduct their minds through cyberspace” (Young Journalists Club – April 19, 2025).
More securitization equals more rebellion
The plan to station police in Iran’s schools is less a sign of the regime’s strength than it is a display of its weakness and fear of a generation that no longer accepts religious tyranny. This generation, which has resisted decades of repression and distortion, is now writing Iran’s contemporary history. The outcome of securitizing schools will be more rebellion and greater alignment with the organized resistance across Iran.