Protests flared for a third consecutive day Monday at universities across Iran, as students returning to campus for the start of the semester intensified their public challenge to the regime in Tehran. In parallel, Lebanon's LBCI television network reported that the US Embassy in Beirut evacuated dozens of staff members via Beirut's airport earlier in the day.
The demonstrations, which began at Sharif University of Technology and Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran and have since spread to other institutions nationwide, mark the most significant open opposition to the regime since the brutal suppression of the January protests, during which thousands of demonstrators were killed by security forces.
Footage circulated on social media showed students at the University of Tehran setting fire to the flag of the Islamic Republic. On the same campus, Iran International, an opposition-affiliated satellite channel, reported chants of "Death to the child-killing regime."
پرچم خرچنگنشان رژیم آدمکش جمهوری اسلامی زیر دست و پای دانشجویان به آتش کشیده شد
دوشنبه | ۴ اسفند ۱۴۰۴
دانشگاه پلیتکنیک (امیرکبیر)● پلیتکنیک (امیرکبیر) قلب تپندهٔ جنبش دانشجویی ایران#انقلاب_شیروخورشید pic.twitter.com/R6JJmpPwqy
— Amirkabir NewsLetter خبرنامهٔ امیرکبیر (@autnews_org) February 23, 2026
According to an Amirkabir University student organization operating outside Iran, regime supporters affiliated with the Basij militia attacked students at the University of Tehran campus. The Basij is a paramilitary force subordinate to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
At Alzahra University, a women's university in Tehran, students burned and tore the Islamic Republic flag, ripped up photographs of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members killed in the war against Israel, and demanded that the institution's original name, honoring Farah Pahlavi, wife of the last shah, be restored. At Isfahan University of Technology, students raised the pre-1979 lion and sun flag, once Iran's national emblem, and chanted "Long live the shah."
Iranian media reported that Sharif University President Masoud Tajrishi arrived on campus Monday in an attempt to speak with protesting students but was met with boos. Tajrishi warned that the demonstrations were "illegal" and said the prosecutor's office had become involved.
حمله وحوش بسیجی به دانشجویان دانشگاه تهران با شعار الله اکبر در پی مقاومت دانشجویان، درگیری شدیدی شکل گرفته است
دوشنبه | ۴ اسفند ۱۴۰۴
دانشگاه تهران#انقلاب_شیروخورشید pic.twitter.com/Tjx5DHBWLG— Amirkabir NewsLetter خبرنامهٔ امیرکبیر (@autnews_org) February 23, 2026
"The prosecutor's office has entered the matter and said this is not just a university issue and that it must intervene," he said.
Tajrishi added that several students had already been barred from entering campus and warned that "if the number of suspended students increases, the entire university will switch to online learning." Reports indicated that students at other universities also received text messages informing them they had been banned from campus.
Deputy Science Minister and head of the Student Affairs Organization Saeed Habiba said that "violence and insults are the university's two red lines," adding that disciplinary committees would act against those who crossed them.
"The deaths of our loved ones should not serve as an excuse for behavior that contradicts academic values," he said.
The University of Tehran denied that students had been arrested inside the campus, but confirmed that eight people were detained outside the grounds during the January events, two of whom remain in custody. The university's vice president for cultural affairs did not rule out the presence of outside elements in the current protests and said students had been injured in clashes.
