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Day 2: Clashes at Tehran universities 2 Tehran universities attacked AUT News | Dec. 8, 2009 Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia forces attacked campuses at Tehran University and Shahid Beheshti University in the Iranian capital on Tuesday morning. Amir Kabir University of Technology (AUT) news service reported that the gates of Tehran University were opened by campus guards to allow the militia forces to pour onto campus. Today's events after pro-opposition students announced Monday that they would gather Tuesday morning to protest the violent treatment they had received at the hands of plainclothes forces during Student's Day protests at Tehran...

Iran's University Student Day has taken on new symbolism: it marks the cruelty of the Islamic Republic Yesterday, Iranian students sent a clear message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the opposition movement is very much alive. Despite the government’s ban on protests, students draped in the colour of the Green Movement gathered at universities across the country. They tore down posters of their president and chanted ‘death to the dictator’ in full knowledge that the Basij militia force, armed with tear gas and batons, would be waiting for them outside the University gates.

Reporting from Beirut - Campuses across Iran erupted in protests Monday as defiant college students chanting anti-government slogans clashed with security forces armed with clubs in a forceful new round of confrontations over the nation's disputed June presidential election. The daylong protests on National Students Day were not as large in Tehran as those that broke out in the days after the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But they took place in a larger number of cities and towns and followed weeks of ominous warnings by security officials. They continued through the day despite efforts by security forces arrayed on...

Ahead of a planned opposition rally on Monday, Iran tightened security and arrested over 20 mothers who were mourning children killed in the unrest that has broken out since the disputed June 12 elections. The mothers took part in an antigovernment protest in Leleh Park in central Tehran every Saturday since the death in June of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, whose shooting became a symbol of the government’s violent repression. The rally had been attacked by the police before, but Saturday was the first time the mothers were arrested. An opposition Web site reported that the protest was broken up by...

TEHRAN, Iran – Government opponents shouted "Allahu Akbar" and "Death to the Dictator" from Tehran's rooftops in the pouring rain on the eve of student demonstrations planned for Monday. Authorities choked off Internet access and warned journalists working for foreign media to stick to their offices for the next three days.

BEIRUT - As they gear up for a major anti-government protest Monday, Iranian students are besieged by a clampdown in the universities, with a wave of arrests and expulsions. At the same time, authorities are intensifying enforcement of Islamic morals on women's dress and men's hair length as a way to punish political dissent.

Sometimes the smallest ideas can have the biggest impact. And so it may be in helping to push change in Iran. Almost without notice, a small initiative to help democratic reformers in Iran is moving through the U.S. Congress. The notion is disarmingly simple: With a small investment of money, the U.S. government can help Iranian citizens get around efforts by the Iranian regime to block their use of the Internet to communicate with each other and the outside world. The power of this idea became apparent amid the widespread anger in Iran over the country's disputed presidential election this...

TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian court sentenced a former vice president to six years in jail as part of a mass trial of opposition figures accused of fomenting the unrest after the disputed June presidential election, the defendant's lawyer said Sunday.

At the height of the protests following Iran's controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a camera phone, then uploaded to the Web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government's hold on power. In A Death in Tehran, FRONTLINE revisits the events of last summer, shedding new light on Neda's life and death and the movement she helped inspire. In response to the international outcry over Neda's death...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Five people have been sentenced to death and 81 have received jail terms of up to 15 years in connection with unrest after Iran's disputed June election, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Tuesday. Citing a statement by the public relations office of Tehran's provincial court, it said those sentenced to death were affiliated to or members of 'counter-revolutionary groups'. It said the verdicts can be appealed. It was not immediately clear if the five were the same as those reported by an Iranian rights group earlier this week to have been sentenced to death. The IRIB report...

Reformist news outlets report that Ramin Pourandarjani, "physician of Iran's Kahrizak detention centre" died last Tuesday. Norooz website reports that the 26-year-old physician died in his room at the medical building of Tehran's Security Forces. Reportedly, officials announced the cause of death to be "heart failure while sleeping." According to Norooz, Dr. Pourandarjani had examined some of the victims of Kahrizak detention centre such as Mohsen Ruholamini whom he had examined prior to his death. Norooz also claims that a week after Ruholamini's death, this physician was taken into custody until he made the announcement that cause of Ruholamini's death...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot be removed from his post because his legitimacy comes from God, an official close to Iran's most powerful figure was reported Friday as saying. Khamenei, whose public persona is usually above politics, stoked controversy in Iran when he endorsed the disputed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June's presidential elections, which plunged Iran into its deepest internal crisis since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Supporters of defeated candidates staged protests that were crushed by police, saying the vote was rigged. Mojtaba Zolnour, a Khamenei representative in the elite Revolutionary Guards,...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The showdown between Iran's clerical leaders and a resilient protest movement sharpened Saturday, as opposition leaders accused the government of becoming more brutal than the shah's regime and authorities announced a new Internet crackdown. Two of Iran's top pro-reform figures said in a Web statement that police used excessive force against anti-government protesters who took to the streets last week on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has deployed a special police unit to sweep Web sites for political material and prosecute those deemed to be spreading lies, Iranian media reported Saturday, in a step clearly aimed at choking off the embattled opposition's last real means of keeping its campaign alive.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Just minutes before anti-riot police charged opposition marchers in Tehran last week, a new chant bubbled up from the crowd: "Death to Nobody." It was more than just a play on the "Death to America" slogans that are staples of Iran's political life. The cries give a sense of how much the protest movement has evolved since the raw outrage of last summer. The demonstrations have moved beyond narrow attacks on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election in June. They are now drifting toward a blanket challenge of the Islamic leadership's right to rule.

Revolutions require zeal, energy and fervor - all of which need to be maintained. For the past 30 years, Iran's Islamic regime has struggled to keep its revolution alive. The latest round of the nuclear deal is no different. It is already presented as another revolutionary victory, and it might strengthen the hold of the fragile government in Teheran that is desperately seeking legitimacy since its controversial elections in June. But legitimacy, we should note, is no longer in the hands of the International Atomic Energy Agency or the international community; it is in the hands of the Iranian people....

At the height of the protests following Iran’s controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a cameraphone, then uploaded to the web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Agha Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government’s hold on power. With the help of a unique network of correspondents in and out of the country, FRONTLINE investigates the life and death of the woman whose image remains a potent symbol for those who want to...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police detained more than 100 people for "disturbing public order" during a rally this week to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday. Security forces clashed with supporters of Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran on Wednesday when an annual state-organised rally marking the 30th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy turned violent.

Troops fire tear gas and beat demonstrators on the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy's seizure. Reporting from Tehran and Beirut - Iran's capital erupted in chaos and violence today as anti-government protestors and security forces clashed on the 30th anniversary of the seizing of the U.S. Embassy by radical students. Today's demonstration did not appear to be as large as the huge marches that erupted following the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the protest, the largest in six weeks, struck at one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic by showing that a sizable...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama noted Wednesday's 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, while insisting he wants the U.S. and Iran to move beyond "suspicion, mistrust and confrontation."

Last week, I had the opportunity to address over forty members of the United States Congress with the goal to encourage their recognition of the importance of engaging the Iranian people and their ongoing struggle for human rights and democracy. I began my remarks by asking, "If the U.S. is to continue to assert engagement as the path forward in the case of Iran, whom precisely should the engagement be with?" The answer: the "Green Movement" of the Iranian people. If the U.S. supports the Iranian people in their struggle for democracy -- for human rights and liberties -- it...

Several Iranian websites, including the official site of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have published details of an unusual encounter between Khamenei and a student who publicly criticized the Iranian establishment. The encounter took place in an October 28 meeting between Khamenei and students in Tehran, during which the supreme leader said that questioning the disputed June 12 vote was the "biggest crime." According to the reports, a student from Sharif University, named by some websites as Mahmud Vahidnia, criticized the Iranian leader, state broadcast media, the postelection crackdown, and the closure of the reformist press -- for a...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi appeared to urge his supporters on Saturday to take part in rallies on November 4 marking the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. If they gather in the streets on Wednesday, there may be clashes with police and government backers, as happened during annual demonstrations in Iran in support of the Palestinians on September 18. In a statement posted on a reformist website, Mousavi said he would press ahead with his efforts for political change in Iran following its disputed election in June, which he says was...

Turkish prime minister Erdogan has flown back home after a 2-day visit to Tehran. It was a big deal in all senses of the term. He went to Iran with a large delegation, including three ministers, many businessmen, leaders of Parliament, scads of reporters, and television crews. He met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki, “President” Ahmadinejad, and other ministers. According to Iranians who were involved in the meetings, the two countries reached agreement on many issues, the upshot of which is a considerable tightening of the working alliance between them: –The creation of a joint airline; –The creation of a...

Student protests against the regime of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad continue. A protest was held today by students at the Islamic Azad University in southern Tehran. Reports say more than 1,000 students participated. The students chanted “Allah Akbar,” “Death to the Dictator,” and “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein," in support of opposition politician Mir Hossein Musavi, who lost to Ahmadinejad in a disputed election in June. A number of protests against Ahmadinejad and his allies have been held at universities in Tehran and other cities since the beginning of the academic year in late September.

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Thirty years ago, Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile to found a totalitarian theocracy -- the likes of which we have not seen for hundreds of years, perhaps even since medieval Europe. Thirty years ago, Iranian militants took American embassy workers hostage. Thirty years ago was the last time I saw Iran. To this day, I have not been able to return. In 1979, the new Iranian clerical regime promised the Iranian people a republic. By definition, a "republic" is a state in which the supreme power...

Iranian authorities arrested the wives and family members of a number of high-profile political detainees at a religious ceremony in Tehran, several reformist Web sites reported Friday. The raid happened Thursday after the family members of one detainee, Shahab Tabatabee, announced on the Web site Norooz News that they were holding a prayer ceremony for his release. Mr. Tabatabee, a member of the reformist party Islamic Iran Participation Front, was sentenced to five years in prison last week. The police raided the ceremony at a private home a few minutes after it began, according to a relative of some of...

TORONTO — When Kian Tajbakhsh went before a judge in Tehran on Sunday he had several reasons to think he would be released. Instead, to his utter shock, he was given a 15-year prison term. Since being detained in July, Mr. Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar, had been permitted two home visits, the last on Oct. 15, when he appeared hopeful that he would be released soon, a family member said. He said he had been transferred recently to a villa on the compound of the Evin prison, a sign of leniency that he thought suggested his release was imminent. Mr....

Mehdi Karubi, secretary general of the Etemad Melli (“National Trust”) Party and the principal revealer of post June 12 presidential election crimes in Iran, has been the subject of threats and attacks from official and unofficial channels associated with coup supporters in the past two days, and Ahmad Jannati, secretary of the Guardian Council, called for his prosecution at the Friday Prayers sermon last week. The day before that, Mostafa Pourmohammadi and prior to that Mohseni-Ezhei had threatened Karubi to judicial proceedings. In response to all threats, Karubi has said, “The court can be a good place for me to...

TEHRAN, Iran – A special court formed after Iran's post-election unrest has convicted an Iranian-American academic and sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, state media said Tuesday. Kian Tajbakhsh was the only American in an ongoing mass trial of alleged Iranian opposition members and reportedly faced charges including espionage, contacting foreign agents and acting against Iran's national security. Tajbakhsh was arrested July 9 during a crackdown on protesters and Iranian political figures rallying against the disputed presidential elections, which critics claimed were rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

MOSCOW, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - An Iranian court has released on a $300,000 bail a Newsweek journalist with dual Iranian-Canadian citizenship, arrested in the wake of the disputed presidential elections in June, Iranian media said. Maziar Bahari, 42, who worked as a Newsweek reporter since 1998, was arrested on June 21 during the post-vote protests in Tehran "for his role in instigating events occurred after the presidential election," the Press TV said. "Bahari was released on 3 billion rials ($300,000) bail from Evin prison on Saturday night," the semi-official Islamic Labor News Agency said citing a judiciary source. Bahari...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iranian bloggers won a major press award Friday for their efforts to cover the Islamic Republic's disputed presidential election. Iranian journalist Delbar Tavakoli, who fled the country after losing her job, received Friday the 2009 Mohamed Amin Award on behalf of the bloggers "for their commitment, bravery and dedication under harrowing conditions and extraordinary pressure while covering the presidential election." "Iranian bloggers redefined the concept of citizen journalism and social networking when they became the only source of news in Iran post-election," Christoph Pleitgen, head of Reuters News Agency media business said in a statement. Established in...

TEHRAN, Iran — A hard-line cleric sought Friday to head off an attempt to reinvigorate Iran's anti-government movement, warning against a planned opposition rally next month that would coincide with annual state-sponsored demonstrations against the United States. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, delivering the weekly Muslim prayer sermon in Tehran, also had an unusual warning for the security forces, telling them any soft treatment of those activists already in detention would be considered treason. "Nobody gives a flower to his murderer," he said. Iranian authorities executed a fierce crackdown on the hundreds of thousands of protesters who poured into the streets in...

Narges Kalhor, the daughter of Ahmadinejad advisor Mehdi Kalhor, filed for asylum in the west after traveling to the Nuremberg International Human Rights Festival to present her movie condemning torture. The 25-year-old Narges lives with her mother and has not had any contacts with her father in more than a year. In an interview with Rooz, she discusses her film and her exit from Iran. The Nuremberg International Human Rights Festival showcased a film that had Narges Kalhor’s name on it. The film, called Rake, was based on a Franz Kafka novel. The film describes a torture chamber called Rake...

TORONTO — For two months Ehsan Maleki traveled around Iran with a backpack containing his cameras, a few pieces of clothing and his laptop computer, taking pictures of the reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi during the presidential campaign. He did not know that his backpack and his cameras would soon become his only possessions, or that he would be forced to crawl out of the country hiding in a herd of sheep. Mr. Maleki, 29, is one of dozens of reporters, photographers and bloggers who have either fled Iran or are trying to flee in the aftermath of the disputed...

One dreadful day, the bullet of a henchman of tyranny pierced the young heart of Neda Agha Sultan, and she collapsed on the pavement, gasped for air as her crimson blood painted the black asphalt. Her music teacher along with a young doctor tried desperately to revive her. They kept frantically telling her not to be afraid, not to be afraid. The music teacher was witnessing the death of his young student and all he could do was to breathe encouragement in the vain hope of keeping her alive. Her mouth began to spurt blood and her eyes rolled to...

When he eagerly joined the mass street protests that followed Iran’s tainted June 12 presidential elections, Ibrahim Sharifi, 24, hoped only to add his voice to the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators demanding that the government nullify the results. He never imagined that he would eventually have a far greater impact, as the only person willing to speak publicly about the brutal treatment he was subjected to in prison, including rape and torture. Mr. Sharifi, who recounted his ordeal to the opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, and then released a video account last month on opposition Web...

(Video) Iranian Diasporas sarcasm with Iranian Mullah upon his arrival in New York for UN General Assembly. Mullah blames the U.S. and pro-democracy demonstrator slams him back "soon you will only be able to visit Palestine and Lebanon" Video here: Video

Thousands of Iranian-Americans gathered outside the United Nations on Wednesday to voice their opposition to the Iranian government, in the largest such protest here in 30 years. The protesters' affiliations varied from royalist to communist, but they shared one thing: They don't consider Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared the winner of disputed presidential elections in June, to be Iran's legitimate leader. "Freedom for Iran, justice for Iran," and "Free political prisoners," shouted the protesters convened here for Mr. Ahmadinejad's appearance at the United Nations General Assembly. The crowd included prominent artists, scholars, human-rights activists and former Iranian lawmakers who have joined the...

September 18: Second video collection of pro-Democracy demonstrations in Iran today. Demonstrators used Qud's day as a reason to demonstrate against Ahmadinejad/Khamenei changing slogans of 'Down with Israel' to 'Down to dictator' and 'Down with Russia'. Karroubi, Khatami and Moussavi were present and each was reported attacked by Basiji supporters of Ahmadinejad. Collection here & videos added as they arrive:

Iran's opposition leaders have said they will attend protest meetings at the nationwide Jerusalem Day anti-Israel prayer event on September 18th. Opposition leaders have said they will attend to protest the last election poll, which they say was rigged to secure President Ahmadinejad's re-election. The June presidential election was followed by huge opposition protests, which the government is keen to avoid again. Iranian authorities, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have already warned opposition members they should not use any protest to turn attendees against the clerical establishment. With some opposition websites calling for new antigovernment protests on Qods Day,...

September 15, 2009 Three grandchildren of Iranian dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri have been arrested in the Islamic holy city of Qom, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The father of the three, Ahmad Montazeri, told Radio Farda that the charges against his sons and the reason for their arrest by the Qom Special Clergy Court are unclear. The children's father said 22-year-old Mohammad Mahdi Montazeri, 18-year-old Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri, and 20-year-old Mohammad Ali Montazeri are not politically active. The arrests come after Ayatollah Montazeri issued a new statement in which he urges leading Shi'ite clerics and "sources of emulation" to...

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran's supreme leader told the opposition on Friday they would face a harsh response if they drew their "swords" against the ruling establishment. The warning from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered at Friday prayers three months after a disputed poll that led to widespread unrest, was a clear message he would not tolerate any threat to Iran's clerical system of government. "Resisting the system and taking out the sword against the system will be followed by a harsh response," he told worshippers in a sermon broadcast live on state television.

The interrogator politely apologized for grilling the prisoner about her role in the mass protests over Iran's disputed presidential election. Then the prisoner was made to sit facing a wall in the courtyard of Iran's Evin Prison, blindfolded, handcuffed and covered in an all-enveloping chador for four and a half hours under the blazing sun.

In the middle of the night, at 1:30 in the morning of Friday, August 14th, there was a large explosion at the monster petrochemical facility of the Iranian Pars Petrochemical Company in Bandar Assaluyeh. It is the biggest such plant in Iran, and the second largest in the whole Middle East (second only to one in Saudi Arabia). The explosion, which took place in pipes carrying Liquid Petroleum Gas (which is mostly propane), caused fires throughout the facility. It took at least three hours before the fires were brought under control. At least two persons died (fortunately, at that hour...

A member of a parliamentary committee reportedly says it is investigating claims of a mass burial of protesters after Iran's disputed June election. Last week, a reformist website said "tens" of people had been interred in anonymous graves at a Tehran cemetery. "Parliament is investigating a rumour about a mass burial of post-vote detainees," Hamidreza Katouzian told the official Irna news agency. At least 30 people died in clashes with security forces after the election. The largest mass opposition demonstrations in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution were sparked by allegations of widespread fraud in the presidential election, which saw...

By now, most people know that the Iranian regime treats its dissidents with unrestrained barbarity. Even the leading dead tree media have reported anecdotally on the torture of prisoners and the bashing, beating, axing and stabbing of protestors in the streets of the major cities. But it is not easy to get a clear picture of the dimensions of the savagery. It’s hard to get the real numbers on the bloody repression the mullahs have unleashed on their people, and one reason–perhaps the most important one–is that the regime is doing everything in its power to conceal the facts, typically...

According to Majid Ansari, member of the Association of Combatant Clerics, cases of sexual abuse of prisoners are certain and the evidence regarding them has been already handed to officials of the Islamic Republic. Mehdi Karoubi, a disputing candidate of the recent presidential elections in Iran, was the first to officially publicize reports of the alleged sexual assault. In a letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani, Chairman of Council of Experts, he had urged an immediate investigation of the reports. After ten days, having received no response from Ayatollah Rafsanjani, he released the letter to the media. While Karoubi and Ansari and...

TEHERAN - IRAN'S powerful conservative camp rejected on Wednesday claims that election protesters were raped in custody and issued a stern warning to opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi for raising the allegations. As the political turmoil raged on, lawmakers urged Iran to review ties with Western nations they accuse of 'meddling' in its affairs, saying the United States, Britain and France was backing opposition groups. 'The issue of detainees being sexually abused is a lie,' parliament speaker Ali Larijani told the assembly, the official IRNA news agency reported. 'Following an investigation of detainees in Kahrizak and Evin prisons, no cases of...

SNIPPET: "The following are excerpts from the letter, as published by norooznews . [1] "...The people who gave me this information hold sensitive positions in the regime... They say that all sorts of incidents are occurring in the prisons... Mr. Hashemi... Some of the detainees say that [certain] people [in the prisons] are raping girls who have been arrested, causing them vaginal tearing and injuries. They are also raping young boys, causing them depression and severe physical and emotional harm... so that [today, after their release] they hide in the corners of their homes. "In light of the gravity of...