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What swirls inside him as he watches riot police move in on protesters in Iran, Ali Houshmand said, is anger.
Outrage and disgust at the regime that controls his homeland, where security forces have violently suppressed demonstrations that erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
She died on September 16 after being arrested by morality police for violating the law requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab or headscarf.
Now her face and plight have become a driving force behind women-led protests in cities around the world, and for a growing emotional support and concern that reaches as far as Glassboro, New Jersey, where Haushmand, who immigrated to the U.S. as a young woman, is president of Rowan University.
Perhaps the position offers him a small platform, he said in an interview. And yes, maybe his speech could cause his nine brothers and sisters in Iran to be hurt or harassed.
“But what is the alternative? To keep quiet? Is this really a choice? It’s not about me or my family, it’s a much bigger issue,” he said. “The majority of people in Iran have become absolutely sick and disgusted by a regime that projects a very dark, rigid and restrictive way of life for everyone. Women are treated horribly.
He sent a university-wide message to the Rowan community Friday, urging them to support the Iranian people as they confront an aggressor.
Houshmand, 67, grew up in an Iran ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a pro-Western dictator who imprisoned and tortured thousands of dissidents and opponents.
It was a cosmopolitan society where reforms put millions more children in school and doubled the adult literacy rate, and women secured the right to vote and run for office, a Brookings Institution study found.
Houshmand’s family lives in poverty in Tehran, the capital. Neither of his parents could read. Neither he nor his nine siblings had enough food or clothing.
His father supported the family by collecting water in jugs and selling it to those who did not have running water. He later ran a small grocery store and as a boy Hushmand worked with him before and after school.
His chance for a different life came at 20, after his military service, when the Army offered him to go overseas to finish high school and enter college. His brothers gave him $70 and a one-way ticket to London.
The following week, Haushmand was working at KFC, earning 50p an hour.
It was 1975, four years before the Islamic Revolution overthrew Iran. Houshmand would go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Essex in England, followed by a master’s and doctorate in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In 1997, he became a US citizen.
He was a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati, later moved to Drexel University, and in 2006 became provost at Rowan. In 2012, he was named president of the university, which has evolved from a teacher training college to a nationally ranked comprehensive research university. It teaches nearly 23,000 students in classes held online and at campuses in Glassboro, Camden and Stratford.
As a younger man, Houshmand watched from abroad as the Shah was overthrown, and he and his friends welcomed the dictator’s exile.
“We were all against the chess,” he said. “We wanted to be revolutionaries. We didn’t realize they were taking our whole life away.
The revolution established a Muslim theocracy that was marked by violence and defined by virulent anti-Americanism. Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 US diplomats hostage, holding them for 444 days, a confrontation that helped Jimmy Carter become a one-term president.
Today, the two countries remain bitter enemies, although more and more Iranians are moving to the United States.
About 385,000 immigrated, many during the revolution or the subsequent Iran-Iraq war. An estimated other 200,000 people in the US report Iranian ancestry.
One-third of all Iranian immigrants live in the Los Angeles area. The Philadelphia region is home to about 4,200 people who immigrated or have ancestry.
Today in Iran, a movement that began as a few demonstrations over the death of one man has grown into large anti-government rallies in at least 40 cities. Women are burning their hijabs in bonfires and cutting off their hair in a show of resistance and solidarity.
State-controlled media reported that at least 35 people were killed in the clashes.
Iranian authorities said Amini died after falling into a coma while waiting among others who were arrested by the morality police, who enforce strict rules requiring women to cover their hair and wear baggy clothes in public places.
“This regime cannot be reformed. It’s not in his nature,” Houshmand said. “The alternative is regime change. And I don’t mean sending weapons. I mean the decision of the Iranian community. Truly declare globally that the world community supports the Iranian people.
A big difference between 1979 and now, he noted, is the potential to rally international support, driven by social media and by a global community willing to stand up for human rights and freedom.
“Honestly,” he said, “if you look at the country of 85 million people, the vast majority have nothing to do with [leadership]. And nothing to do with this system. They want a decent life. They want a school for their children. They love the countries of the world. And they suffer.”
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