'UN double standards': Iran criticizes silence over US campus crackdowns

Iran's top human rights official has criticized the United Nations human rights office for leveling trumped-up rights charges against Iran while turning a blind eye to US violent crackdown on anti-war students and academics in university campuses.

Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, said the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) ignores what is unfolding in university campuses across the US, but did issue statements about so-called rights violations in Iran over the same period.

"The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has taken no notice of what is happening in the US but at the same time issued three statements accusing Iran of human rights violations, which is proof of contradictions and double standards in the UN body's mechanisms," Gharibabadi said on Monday.

From California to New York, Illinois to Texas, the US police have raided university campuses carrying and dragging students away or shockingly slamming them.

They have even arrested professors, like Caroline Fohlin, an Emory University professor, in Georgia, during protests over Israel's genocidal military campaign in Gaza, which has killed nearly 34,500 Palestinians and left over a million displaced and starving.

So far, more than 900 people have been arrested on US campuses, the Washington Post reported on Monday, highlighting that demonstrations were "peaceful and nonviolent until law enforcement showed up."

On Monday, riot police used pepper spray and arrested about 50 students at the University of Texas pro-Gaza protest encampment. Monday’s clashes between police and students marked the second time in less than a week that state police were called to campus.

Gaza solidarity protests sweep US university campuses despite police crackdown

Students at over a dozen universities in the US are following Columbia University’s lead, despite police excesses, to call for divestment from Israel amid its genocidal war on Gaza.

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7, students in the US have been protesting Israel's genocidal actions in the narrow Strip, however, a new wave of demonstrations – marked by protesters setting up encampments on their campuses – has gripped the country.

The students are mainly calling for their universities to disclose their investments and break financial ties with firms linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting off its war against Palestinians. 

The protests spread across America’s most influential universities earlier this month from Columbia University in New York, where the college president Nemat Minouche Shafik called on police to clear protesters' encampments.

Despite harsh crackdowns, including mass suspensions, evictions from university housing, and arrests, similar protests have sprung up across the US with footage emerging of students, professors, and journalists being violently detained by the police on campuses.

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