Posted on 06/11/2003 10:38:50 AM PDT by jazzyjen97
PARIS, June 11 (IPS) Iranian authorities confirmed Wednesday that students and ordinary people had clashed with security forces and protested against the Islamic Republic system.
Thousands of students protested late Tuesday evening at government plans for privatising some of the country’s universities, but when they came out of their dormitories, they were joined immediately by ordinary people and slogans and demonstration’s chants became political, mostly against Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the regime.
Demonstrators did not even spare the lamed President Mohammad Khatami, calling on him to resign. "Khatami, Khatami, resign, resign", one slogan said. "Death to Khameneh'i"; "Death to Rafsanjani", said another.
Other slogans were calling for the release of all political prisoners and repeating old chants such as "Tank, Gun, are useless".
Eyewitness said clashes with security forces, that were present from the start of the demonstrations, started after plainclothes thugs belonging to the Ansar Hezbollah pressure group and the Basij rampaged in the streets, setting fire on buses, smashing windows and attacking public buildings.
This was partly confirmed by the independent ISNA news agency, the only one that reported immediately on the clashes, smashing of shops and building windows and stone throwing, compared to state-controlled media that kept silence.
The incidents started with some 700 students, 200 of them female, denouncing the privatisation plan, but as they came out of the dormitories, they were joined by ordinary people and the number grew to more than 2.000.
Iran Radio and Television, controlled directly by Ayatollah Khameneh’i, briefly said Wednesday that "some students" had protested to the privatisaton plan, without mentioning clashes.
Minister of Science and Technology Mostafa Mo’in had unveiled a plan to privatise universities and requiring the students to pay tuition fees causing dismay among the students who could not afford to.
Joined by telephone, one demonstrator said he had joined the demonstrations after he heard the news from foreign-based Iranian media, referring to Los Angeles-based radio and televisions that beams anti-regime programs towards Iran.
"What surprised me was the number of people who had rushed to the scene complete with the whole family, including children, reminding me of the first days of the start of the (Islamic) revolution in 1978, when streets were filled with cars loaded with families", he added.
Intelligence Minister Hojjatoleslam Ali Yoonesi confirmed the importance and popularity of these media, telling reporters that the protests were the work outside troublemakers supported by the United States.
"The protests around Tehran University’s dormitories overnight were organised by foreign media and satellite television channels", he admitted.
Speaking to journalists at the Majles, he said that 80 people had been arrested following last night’s clashes.
"Those arrested were pronouncing illegal slogans", Mr. Yoonesi said, without telling which are the legal slogans.
"Documents seized (from demonstrators and arrested people) are so clear and evident that everyone seeing them would immediately realise the hands behind", the Minister said, without, again, producing any document.
"Preventing (reformist’s and dissident’s) meetings and conferences is the work of foreign elements, with American background and forming a trouble fomenting head quarter that has 19 members, all of them arrested", the cleric said, without giving one single name.
Observers noted that last night trouble was the first major student protest for more than six months and could be a rehearsal of what could be awaiting the regime on 9 July, the fourth anniversary of the nation-wide students protest movement.
"Though the regime had been able to put down this latest of students and popular protest after more than six hours of stand off, but it would not be the last and conservatives efforts at blaming the demonstrators for attacking public buildings and setting fire on shops and buses is a very old, Stalinist fashion that would boomerang against the regime", one analyst pointed out.
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