Tension 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.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1057813447061Okay. Who's still awake?