Pro-Pahlavi chants on campus mark historic shift in student politics, professor says

Political commentator Sadegh Zibakalam on Wednesday expressed shock at pro-Pahlavi stance voiced by Iran’s university students, saying he never imagined such slogans would be heard on campus.

“As a professor who taught the history of modern Iran’s political developments at university for 30 years, I could not have imagined even in my dreams that a university which, since Dec. 7, 1953, had always chanted against the Pahlavis would, after 82 years, out of anger and hatred, return to the Pahlavis,” wrote the professor and reformist figure on X.

Students at Iran’s major universities have been staging anti-government protests on campuses, calling for regime change and voicing support for exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi.