The massacre of one-hundred and twenty schoolchildren at the Shajareh Tayebeh Primary School in Minab is unconscionable and we condemn it in the strongest terms. More broadly, we condemn the bombing of Iran’s research and education centres by the United States of America and Israel. Donald Trump has explicitly acknowledged that he aims to ‘take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a nation, again’. The destruction of education centres is in alignment with this criminal intention to prevent the revival and rebuilding of Iranian civilisation. The U.S. president has repeatedly and unashamedly flirted with genocide, such as on April 7th, when he declared ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will’.

However, we, the people, Iranians and non-Iranians alike, will not stand idly by while war crimes are carried out. For every school that is destroyed, we shall build several. For every innocent schoolchild that is murdered, we shall raise a generation of scholars. We will defy Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in their objective to destroy the educational and scientific infrastructure of Iran. The innocent students of the Shajarah Tayebeh Primary School in Minab will be avenged through the peaceful yet relentless act of rebuilding.

We call for and support the founding of a new research university in honour and memory of the children of Minab. The Shajareh Tayebeh University will be dedicated to the promotion of higher learning among women and marginalised groups across Iran and the region. This will help ensure a free and intellectually powerful Iran that is connected to the wider world and serves as a beacon of hope to aspiring schoolchildren everywhere. It is through this act of defiance, not violent action, that we seek justice for the innocents of Minab.

Drafted by Dr M. A. H. Parsa