IRAN: Sex scandal erupts at university

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Thousands of students at a university in western Iran staged a protest this weekend demanding punishment for a ranking school official accused of sexually harassing a student, according to an Iranian newspaper cited by Western news agencies.

The Zanjan University students are shown in this video apparently catching the university’s vice chancellor in the act of sexually harassing a student.

Scroll to the end of the tape to see scenes of campus unrest. Officials say the situation has since come under control.

The alleged sexual contact was all the more galling to students because of the draconian restrictions placed on student behavior by Iranian university authorities.

Students told Iran’s Etemad newspaper that this particular official, unnamed, had tried to shut down a student association on campus because its ‘members have moral problems and do not have an Islamic behavior.’

Iran forbids sexual relations between unmarried men and women.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut