Volker Turk
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Audrey Azoulay
Director-General, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Farida Shaheed
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education
Jürg Lauber
President, UN Human Rights Council
Kaja Kallas
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Marco Rubio
United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor
Your Excellencies, High Representative, Special Rapporteur, and Mr. Secretary:
On behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), we write to lift an pressing concern about Iran’s academic and tutorial establishments changing into a frontline within the U.S.-Israel warfare in opposition to the nation. The warfare has adopted a harmful sample of focusing on civilian establishments, cultural and historic heritage websites, and public service facilities. Schools, universities, and analysis facilities have been systematically focused in violation of worldwide humanitarian regulation, together with the Geneva Conventions (1949) and its Additional Protocol I (1977).
MESA was based in 1966 to advertise scholarship and educating on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent group within the area, MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has near 2800 members worldwide. MESA is dedicated to making sure tutorial freedom and freedom of expression each throughout the area and in reference to the research of the area in North America and elsewhere.
The systematic sample of focusing on universities is obvious within the injury reported within the first month of the warfare. According to Iran’s
Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT), between February 28 and March 30, 21 universities in Iran have been attacked by U.S.-Israeli strikes, leading to damages to 154 buildings and websites on campuses in Iran’s western and central provinces, together with virtually all main universities in Tehran. Universities attacked within the capital embody: the University of Science and Technology (IUST, est. 1929), one of many oldest technical universities within the area, which performs a central position in coaching engineers and advancing industrial and technological improvement in Iran;
Amir Kabir University of Technology (est. 1958) also called Tehran Polytechnic, one in every of Iran’s most prestigious engineering establishments with an extended historical past of analysis and tutorial excellence; Malek-Ashtar University of Technology (est. 1984), the place attacks targeted on analysis services, main to wreck to laboratories and related buildings; the Iran University of Art (est. 1918), the most important artwork college within the nation, the place two buildings have been broken; Imam Hossein University (est. 1986), which presents applications in engineering, sciences, and strategic research, and the place a number of buildings have been broken; and the National Research Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (est. 1989), whose foremost constructing was attacked.
These attacks have continued into the second month of warfare; the newest reported attacks on universities in Tehran focused
Shahid Beheshti University (est. 1960) on April 3, the place one college constructing and a analysis heart have been largely destroyed. On April 5–6, U.S.–Israeli airstrikes
directly hit Sharif University of Technology—typically described as Iran’s MIT in Tehran—damaging key infrastructure, together with an information heart that helps synthetic intelligence techniques and the college’s digital companies. Maryam Mirzakhani, the primary lady to obtain the Fields Medal in arithmetic (known as the Nobel Prize of arithmetic), graduated from Sharif University of Technology.
Beyond Tehran, half of the schools broken in March are main tutorial facilities that service Iran’s provinces. In Isfahan province, the Isfahan University of Technology (IUT, est. 1977), which is broadly considered one in every of Iran’s main facilities for science and engineering, was reportedly focused on a number of events between mid- and late March 2026. At least one confirmed strike resulted in accidents to school personnel and injury to 9 buildings, together with varied college buildings and laboratory services. Facilities on the Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT), additionally sustained injury. Similarly, strikes on Isfahan University of Art (est. 1999), which owns quite a few historic homes and websites within the metropolis, prompted critical damages to 5 buildings, together with the central library and the sports activities complicated.
In West Azerbaijan province, 13 buildings have been broken when the University of Urmia, based in 1879 on the location of the New Westminster Medical College and now the most important college within the area, was focused in an assault. In Ilam province, the coed dormitory complicated and the provincial know-how heart on the University of Ilam (est. 1976), have been broken. In Khuzestan province, 16 buildings on the Jundi-Shapur University of Technology (est. 1972) suffered damages as a result of blast waves, and the perimeter wall of the Khorramshahr University of Marine Science and Technology (est. 1936) was fully destroyed. In Sistan and Baluchestan province, six buildings on the Chabahar Maritime University (est. 1976) sustained damages. In Hamadan province, a number of buildings at Malayer University (est. 1991) skilled minor damages. The male pupil dormitory at Persian Gulf University (est. 1991) in Bushehr province was additionally broken. The National University of Skills (NUS, previously the Technical and Vocational University, est. 2011), which has branches in a number of cities, has sustained damages throughout 14 websites. The mere bodily reconstruction of broken college campuses is predicted to impose a considerable monetary burden on the nation’s increased training system.
Research services within the medical sciences have additionally change into repeated targets within the warfare; in line with the
World Health Organization, over 20 verified attacks have focused healthcare in Iran. On the morning of 31 March 2026, U.S.-Israeli missiles struck the Tofigh Daru Research & Engineering Company (est. 2000), a key analysis and improvement heart producing lively pharmaceutical substances for anticancer, cardiovascular, and immunomodulatory medicines. This grave assault on vital well being analysis infrastructure was adopted by a strike on 2 April on the Pasteur Institute of Iran (est. 1920), a century-old establishment delivering important well being companies, together with vaccines. The institute is residence to 13 nationwide reference laboratories, three biobanks, and two WHO collaborating facilities, and has sustained extreme injury that has rendered it unable to proceed its work as a part of the worldwide Pasteur Institute Network, together with its key position in nationwide and regional illness surveillance.
Attacks on academic infrastructure have additionally broken major and secondary colleges: greater than 760 colleges have been immediately hit or broken as of three April, in line with Iran’s
Ministry of Education. The first day of the warfare noticed direct strikes on the
Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, the place a minimum of 168 individuals, largely youngsters between seven and twelve years of age, have been killed. Over a month after the Minab bombing, the warring aggressors haven’t been held accountable for the strike, with the US army
saying it was still “investigating.” This is whereas credible establishments like
The New York Times have carried out their very own investigations and located the U.S. responsible.
Taken collectively, reported aerial and missile attacks on main academic and analysis establishments point out a deliberate enlargement of the goal doctrine to incorporate human capital infrastructure and the systematic erosion of Iran’s mental infrastructure. This is a part of a broader sample of Israel focusing on academic websites throughout the area. MESA and its Committee on Academic Freedom have
documented and condemned the systematic destruction of Gaza’s academic sector, together with the killing of 1000’s of scholars and a whole bunch of college and employees, in addition to the destruction of all twelve universities. Scholars have described this as scholasticide: the deliberate destruction of academic establishments and the mental life they maintain.
Indeed, this isn’t the primary time college students and school have suffered from extreme disruptions to increased training. US-Israeli attacks on Iran throughout the June 2025 “Twelve-Day War” killed 16 college members and 13 college students and prompted universities to shift to distant operations. On 8-9 January 2026, a safety crackdown resulted in 1000’s arrested and killed and one other shift to distant operations to stop campus protests. The 2026 warfare and the ensuing disruption of training, following upon such attacks and repressive measures, have inflicted each bodily and psychological trauma on college students in any respect ranges—results that many younger Iranians are prone to carry all through their lives.
Contrary to Israeli-U.S. claims that a few of these establishments have a “dual use,” as a result of their alleged contribution to the army sector and are thus reputable army targets,
scholars of worldwide regulation observe that such claims stretch the idea in ways in which disregard proportionality and fail to account for the direct, oblique, and cumulative hurt to civilians. The worldwide regulation neighborhood has additional characterised the U.S.–Israeli determination to provoke the warfare in opposition to Iran as a transparent violation of the United Nations Charter—an evaluation articulated in an
open letter signed by a couple of hundred worldwide regulation consultants. And but, the battle has solely escalated, with U.S. and Israeli operations intensifying, Israeli forces advancing deeper into southern Lebanon, and the United States reportedly threatening to widen and deepen its attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran.
We subsequently name upon worldwide and regional organizations and actors to intervene in response to those critical violations by the US-Israel coalition by publicly condemning such deliberate attacks on academic establishments. As signatories to related conventions, the United States and Israel have to be held to their obligations below worldwide humanitarian regulation to guard students, college students, and the establishments during which they research, analysis, and work. We additional urge worldwide and regional actors to press for the instant cessation of the U.S.-Israel warfare on Iran and to take immediate motion towards bringing this warfare to an finish.
Sincerely,
Ussama Makdisi
MESA President
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Judith E. Tucker
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, Georgetown University
Cc:
Thomas Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
