Zia Nabavi
Zia Nabavi is a human rights defender and campaigner for students’ rights. In 2008, he was denied access to graduate education due to his trade union activities and consequently established “Defend the Rights to Education Committee” (DREC) together with a group of other students, who were deprived of the right to continue higher education in Iranian universities. He is currently a graduate student of sociology at Allameh Tabataba'i University and a member of “United Students' Associations”, which consists of 35 Iranian student unions. It was formed in March 2017 as “an independent, pluralistic, and democratic student association” defending student union rights and social and political rights. It has not been recognized by the Iranian authorities and its members have been targeted since October 2019.
Judicial harassment is one of the most common tactic used to silence HRDs and independent voices. Vaguely-worded charges of “acting against national security", “propaganda against the regime” or “enmity against God” are often used.
