A group of scholars in Iranian studies issued a public statement expressing solidarity with people in Iran, describing the protests as a defining historical moment and warning that silence or misplaced neutrality carries consequences.
“The current uprising marks a defining historical moment - one in which silence, equivocation, or misplaced neutrality carries consequences,” the scholars said in a collective statement released on Thursday.
The statement said academics who work on Iran benefit professionally from their research and therefore bear a responsibility to acknowledge the realities facing Iranians. It pointed to widespread state violence, including killings, imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearances and executions, alongside broader repression through surveillance, internet shutdowns, economic pressure and restricted access to medical care.
Universities have become central sites of repression, the statement said, with students, faculty members and researchers arrested, dismissed, forced into exile or killed for political expression. Campuses have been militarized and academic life hollowed out through intimidation and purges, it added.
The scholars rejected narratives portraying the protests as driven by foreign actors, calling such claims a core element of state propaganda that erases Iranian political agency.
“We further reject the repeated circulation - explicit or implicit - of narratives about foreign orchestration, outside agitators, or foreign boots on the ground for which the government has not provided any provable evidence,” the statement said.
The scholars also criticized what they described as an excessive focus on data disputes while documentation of events inside Iran is actively suppressed.
At the same time, they said they do not advocate war or external control over Iran’s future, emphasizing opposition to authoritarian violence without endorsing foreign intervention.
Calling for ethical clarity within their field, the signatories urged colleagues to stand publicly with protesters, avoid reproducing official narratives, center the voices of Iranians demanding change and prioritize documentation of lived experience. They also called for the immediate release of political prisoners and an end to executions.
