Who we are?
Amirkabir Newsletter is a student-run media platform founded in the late 1990s at Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic). It began as AKU-News, the printed bulletin of the Islamic Association of Amirkabir University students, supported by campus activists and the national student union, the Office for Tahim-e Vahdat. In July 1999, amid nationwide student unrest following the attack on Tehran University dormitories by security forces, its organizers expanded the newsletter into a national forum for the Iranian student movement. From then on, it functioned as a de facto press organ linking campuses across Iran and reporting on student rights, academic freedom, and campus protests.
Aachen Peace Prize 2025
Laureate of Aachen Peace Prize
The Aachen Peace Prize Committee in Germany announced Amirkabir Newsletter as the 2025 laureate. This year’s winner is an Iranian student human rights organization that consistently documents protests, arrests, repression, and human rights violations in Iranian universities, and reports on the suppression of students and faculty members.
At the press conference announcing the 2025 winners, held today (21 May 2025), the committee praised the “courage of the editorial team” and described Amirkabir Newsletter as an essential communication tool for a protest movement that is forced to operate and organize clandestinely against the Islamic Republic. The platform now reaches hundreds of thousands of people through the internet and social media and has become an influential voice for the student movement in Iran.
The Aachen Peace Prize, one of Germany’s oldest human rights awards, has been presented annually since 1988 to individuals and groups who, through grassroots efforts, work for peace, democracy, and understanding between peoples. Previous recipients include well-known figures such as Kailash Satyarthi, the Indian child rights activist and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.