No, it is not "safe"

and you will spend the rest of your lives looking over your shoulders. You will always be waiting for the tap on the shoulder and the "we know what you did" and "traitor" and more.

My days at teacher training college were mostly quiet. We did not go out and protest. We did not have much opportunity to do that. It is not that we were particularly hard working or that the course required long hours of us. (Looking back it was appallingly low level.) We were surrounded by people much the same as ourselves. Most of us had English, Scots, Irish, Greek, Italian, German, Dutch surnames (you get the picture I am sure). There were no hijabs or turbans in sight. 

University was different. I was in another country on the other side of the world. I mixed with students from Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East and the West Indies. It was suddenly and shockingly much more interesting.  It was still not that diverse in the sense we were all there studying aspects of education and psychology. There was still no "protesting" of any serious sort. I was the elected "student representative" who went to the staff meetings (and still wonder how I have not died of lung cancer from all the secondhand cigarette smoke). I went on to be more than that but was still largely unaware of something that was starting to come in.

It was at Law School where I lived in a hall of residence and tutored at the same time that I became aware of "issues" with the Asian and Middle Eastern students. At first I was naive enough to believe I was mistaken but it soon became obvious. Those students were being watched. They were being watched all the time. 

Yes, it was subtle I suppose. It was the apparently "casual" greetings and the apparently "casual" questions about results. Sometimes it would be outright questions about where someone had been or where they were going. Who had they been with? Why? What were they saying? What did you say?

I was confronted once by a male student demanding to know if a friend of mine removed her hijab inside the group house she lived in. There had been a male visitor, an elderly relative of another girl.  He would apparently have been "very distressed" to have this happen. Was I also supposed to cover my head? Yes apparently...and "dress modestly" in the presence of such elderly men. 

No, it is not a myth. There are students who are "spying" on other students. They are ensuring the "rules" are kept, that Ramadan is observed and students go to the prayer rooms. It does not happen to all of them but it happens to enough of them to add another layer of stress. Break the rules and, at best, you will find your career opportunities are limited on your return home. Your family, if they are not already the perpetrators, will suffer too.

So please do not think it will be easy for the Iranian girls who have decided to stay. They will know their families will suffer. They will be told they are "traitors" and that they are "selfish" and that they are disobeying what their religion demands of them. It is not going to be easy for them. They will be waiting for the rest of their lives.