Tehran in turmoil as students protest
By Michael Theodoulou
July 10, 2003
THOUSANDS of prodemocracy demonstrators converged last night on Tehran University and fought street battles with police and Islamic vigilantes on the fourth anniversary of campus protests that were brutally suppressed.
Police clashed with hardline Islamic vigilantes, who tried to approach the area where the demonstrators had formed a long traffic jam in their cars. They also fired teargas at the protesters.
“The atmosphere is very tense, the smell of teargas is thick in the air. Police have clashed with youths, the youths have fought with basijis and I saw police fighting basijis trying to get closer to the university,” a witness said.
The basij militiamen, identifiable only by their beards, clubs and untucked shirts, are fiercely loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, Iran’s most powerful figure. They are outside the control of the reformist President Khatami, who indirectly supervises the civilian police through the Interior Ministry and the National Security Council, which he heads.
Hundreds of riot police reinforcements later poured in to take control of the area, dispersing crowds and chasing youths into side streets and beating them with batons.
Police appeared to have a firmer grip on security than during last month’s unrest, when at times they stood by and watched as vigilantes beat protesters with chains, cables and clubs and roared around on motorcycles attacking protesters at will. But cars still clogged the downtown area into the night, with drivers beeping horns in support of the protesters when basij or police were not looking.
The authorities had taken measures to silence radio and satellite television stations run by exiles in California. Authorities had also banned gatherings and closed campuses in the expectation of possible unrest to mark the anniversary, which came shortly after a wave of student demonstrations.
Last month 4,000 people, including some 30 student leaders, were arrested during ten nights of sometimes violent protests across Iran that received warm support from Washington. At least 2,000 people are still being held.
Those detentions, together with a lack of organisation and direction among protesters and disunity among student groups, mean that the regime is not under the sort of immediate threat that hawks in the Bush Administration might hope, analysts say.
But the June protests were a warning that the old guard will ignore at its peril because the students were joined by many ordinary people who voiced some of the most daring anti-regime slogans ever heard. Frustrations have been steadily mounting among the young population at the old guard’s determination to block attempts by elected reformist politicians to liberalise the Islamic system.
The clashes last night came after Iran attempted to relieve external pressure by agreeing to work with the United Nations nuclear watchdog on the prospect of allowing more intrusive inspections of its nuclear programme.
Mohammed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that he would send a team of experts to Iran next week to clarify the country’s concerns over signing an additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that would allow surprise visits to its facilities.
“I hope that, once these issues have been clarified, Iran will be in a position to sign the protocol. But naturally that is a decision for the Iranian Government to make,” he said.
He described his talks in Tehran with President Khatami and other senior officials as “open, direct and constructive”.
Gholam-Reza Aghazedeh, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, said that he was “certain that co-operation with the IAEA will bring very good results”.
Iran denies American accusations that it is using the nuclear energy programme as a cover for developing nuclear weapons, but has said that it would only consider signing the additional protocol if other NPT signatories met their obligations relating to the transfer of civil nuclear technology.
There were indications that Iran might agree to sign an additional protocol, diplomats said. “An increasing number of government spokesmen and majlis (parliament) deputies are talking about Iran’s readiness to sign an additional protocol, although there’s nothing concrete yet,” an Asian diplomat said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-740779,00.htmlTension Mounts Over Student Protests in Iran
July 10, 2003
The Jerusalem Post
Matthew Gutman
Shrugging off death threats by government paramilitary forces, thousands of Iranian students took to the streets Wednesday night, according to Israel Radio.
They called for the country's democratization and death to its extremist leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini.
The demonstrations, banned by the regime, came on the fourth anniversary of 1999 pro-reform protests which triggered a violent regime crackdown, the death of one student, and the arrest of thousands.
However, AP reported from Teheran that faced by swarms of police and right-wing vigilantes, the students canceled their plans to hold a protest.
Opposition group leaders hailed the demonstrations - the culmination of month-long anti-government activities - as a deadly blow to the repressive regime, saying it edges Iran ever closer to a democratic revolution.
"This is a very big step forward in the road to the democratization in Iran," Safa Haeri, editor of the the Iranian Press Service told The Jerusalem Post from Paris.
Beyond the demonstrations themselves, Haeri regarded the student's success in capturing world media attention "a watershed event."
He said the demonstrations and a student letter campaign calling Iran a "political apartheid state" might compel the US to slap an embargo on Iran for violating basic human rights.
Following an eerily quiet day, three-sided street battles erupted between pro-reform youth, regime-backed paramilitary forces, and police outside Teheran University.
Thousands also gathered around one of Teheran's main squares Wednesday night chanting pro-democracy slogans and calling for the death of Khameini, an opposition source said.
The protests also coincide with mounting international pressure on Iran to reveal its secret nuclear reactors.
On a visit to Iran Wednesday, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Muhammad el-Baradei failed to secure agreement to immediately allow more rigorous inspections of Teheran's suspected nuclear program.
The Iranian regime consents only to prearranged visits to sites it chooses to declare.
But facing mounting pressure from the US and Britain, Iran has said it would only consider signing the protocol if other Non-Proliferation Treaty signatories met their obligations relating to the transfer of civil nuclear technology.
Earlier in the day, three student leaders were arrested after they criticized the government in a news conference.
Government-supported militants have been attacking students, invading student dormitories, and beating students in their sleep for more than a month. The attacks are aimed at discouraging students from their almost nightly demonstrations calling for an end to the repressive regime.
With crackdowns coming with increasing fury, students have fought back, for the first time calling for Khameini's death, a crime punishable with a hefty prison term or even disappearance at the hands of the paramilitary forces.
In an effort to forestall the demonstrations, the government deployed the paramilitary Ansar Hizbullah and the Basij volunteers - notorious for their pro-ayatollah fanaticism and their penchant for spilling blood.
The mullahs told reformist parliament deputies to rein in demonstrators or they "would be mercilessly crushed," according to a Iranian opposition source.
The paramilitary groups were not armed with batons but with firearms, said the source.
In an open letter to UN General-Secretary Kofi Annan, student leaders claimed that "a political apartheid has taken all hopes from the Iranian people, because it is denying us self-rule and the right of choice, the right to be master of our own destiny, because it has lowered our expectations to the lowest limits possible and also because we are worried to see the experience of our neighbors be repeated here."
The signatories represented student associations of 30 universities.
Part of the impetus for the continued pressure on the government originates with US, France, and UK-based opposition groups openly supporting student revolt.
Pentagon sources have for months been prophesying a student revolt that could, if only eventually, topple the regime.
One Israel-based Farsi broadcaster, Menashe Amir, predicted that an Iranian national uprising is a matter of time. He cited Iranians' anger at poverty, drug addiction, and support for international terror.
The Jerusalem-based station broadcasts Iranian-language talk shows on short-wave frequencies that can be heard in Iran. Iranians.
Israel Radio estimates tens of millions of Iranians listen to its Farsi broadcasts, particularly during times of unrest, and says people from all walks of society call in regularly.
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