Story last updated at 6:43 a.m. Sunday, June 29, 2003
Iran crisis deepening, students say
4,000 arrested during protests
Associated Press
TEHRAN, IRAN--Iran announced that more than 4,000 people were arrested during a month of violent pro-reform protests, and a student leader warned Saturday that the crackdown was only fueling hatred of the ruling clerics.
Iran's prosecutor general, Abdolnabi Namazi, said about 800 students and 30 key student leaders were among the 4,000 arrested as a result of the June 10-14 protests, the state-run daily newspaper Iran reported Saturday.
Namazi said about 2,000 people remained in jail.
Authorities had earlier said only 520 people, mostly "hooligans," had been detained.
"The confirmation of 4,000 arrests shows how insincere the rulers are and how the crisis has deepened in Iran," student leader Saeed Allahbadashti told The Associated Press.
Also Saturday, four reformist lawmakers began a 48-hour sit-in at parliament to protest the "violent and illegal continuing arrest of students."
The recent protests, the largest in months, began with students demonstrating against plans to privatize universities then snowballed into broader displays of opposition to Iran's hard-line clerical establishment, led by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The demonstrations largely ended after the deployment of hundreds of security forces and the unleashing of pro-clergy thugs, armed with knives and batons, to attack protesters.
Allahbadashti, one of few student leaders not imprisoned during the protests, said the establishment had lost its legitimacy through the crackdown.
"The judicial authorities are openly lying to the nation. First, they said a few hooligans had been arrested. Now, they confirm the arrest of 800 students.
"They are buying only greater hatred from the people whose call for change has been ignored," he said.
Meanwhile, authorities are trying to prevent a new round of student protests to mark the fourth anniversary of a July 9, 1999, attack on Tehran University dormitories by pro-clerical militants.
Those attacks killed one student, injured at least 20 others and triggered six days of nationwide, anti-government protests, the worst since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Authorities have banned any marches to commemorate the raid. Students have vowed to defy the ban and warned that their accumulated wrath was about to explode.
In a gesture of support for students, lawmakers Fatemeh Haqiqatjou, Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, Meysam Saeidi and Reza Yousefian began their sit-in protest at parliament.
"We are here to protest the very inappropriate arrests of students, with guns pointed at their throats by unidentified agents, including some students who were not part of recent protests," Haqiqatjou told a news conference before the sit-in.
An article found on al-Jazeerah:
US could go it alone on Iran, North Korea, Rice Rice warns of ‘Made in America’ solution
Compiled by Daily Star staff, 6/28/03
LONDON: US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice indicated that the United States is ready to act alone against Iran and North Korea if European countries do not cooperate in stopping them from developing nuclear weapons, the Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
“If we do not want a ‘Made in America’ solution, let’s find out how to resolve the issues of North Korea and Iran,” the paper quoted Rice as saying during a visit to London Thursday.
Rice sought to play down the prospect of a war against Iran, saying: “We do not ever want to have to deal with the proliferation issue as we did in Iraq.” However, according to the right-wing Telegraph, her comments had echoes of the blunt talking that surrounded the debate before the Iraq war.
Rice accused Iran of seeking secretly to build nuclear weapons, and vowed that North Korea would not be allowed to “blackmail” the world with threats to resume its nuclear program, according to the newspaper.
But she said the US sought international cooperation and that Iran’s program was best dealt with by convincing Tehran to agree to intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Addressing the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Rice said North Korea was best addressed by regional powers exerting pressure.
But she did not rule out military action, the Telegraph reported. “The avoidance of war is not in itself a final goal,” she said. “Sometimes one has to fight wars to deal with tyrants.” Later she added: “We want a multilateral solution. But we do want a solution.
“Post Sept. 11, the sense of urgency to have solutions to these problems has grown,” she said, in reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. “The absence of action is not a solution. Sometimes multilateralism is code for not acting.”
Also Friday, Japan joined the United States and Europe in pressing Iran to allow full inspections of its nuclear facilities. The request was made by Japanese Senior Vice-Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi when he met Iranian Ambassador to Japan Ali Majedi, a Foreign Ministry official said.
“Japan for its part has strong concern as it gives the top priority to the reinforcement of the nuclear nonproliferation regime,” Motegi was quoted as telling the envoy.
But the Iranian ambassador reaffirmed Tehran’s position that Iran’s nuclear program is strictly for “peaceful purposes.”
Majedi promised to convey Japan’s concern to his home government, the official said.
Motegi also called on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA and to unconditionally sign and implement an additional protocol on nuclear inspections with the UN nuclear watchdog.
