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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters The voice of their revolution
By Safa HaeriAs the Iranian students' revolt entered its fifth straight day Monday, the siege surrounding the offices of the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, grew tighter. Students openly lashed out at Khamenei himself, charging that he was the puppet master behind the "criminals" of the Ansar Hizbollah, and calling for his resignation. A sacred taboo which had stood for 20 years lay shattered in broad daylight.
"Ansar commits crimes, the leader [Khamenei] supports them," the crowds chanted. "Treason, crime... all under the aba [robe] of the leader." ''Either Islam and the law, or another revolution."
Late on Thursday night, Ansar's men had stormed the student dormitories, beating those they found, setting fire to the rooms and destroying furniture and equipment. The Revolutionary Guard intervened, clashing with the moderate students. At least one student died in the ensuing battle, more than 200 were wounded and 500 arrests were made. The Ansar attack was in revenge for demonstrations earlier in the day at which students protested a decision by the judiciary, which is controlled by hard-liners, to close down the newspaper Salam, known for its liberal views and close ties to moderate Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
The crisis, the most serious the Islamic state has so far had to face, also demonstrated the incompetence of the clerical authorities to deal with even the simplest of situations. In less than four days, small-scale demonstrations by students protesting the closure of a popular daily have been allowed to mushroom into the severest test the regime has had to face in the past 18 years.
The student protest movement has now spread to all major Iranian cities. In some towns, such as Ahvaz, the capital of the oil-rich Khouzestan province, a state of emergency has been declared.
The students warned both the government of President Khatami and the conservatives that they would not stop their protest until the commander of the revolutionary guard himself has been stripped of his office, arrested and handed over to the courts. The authorities duly sought to appease this demand, announcing that they had placed under arrest a revolutionary guard general by the name of Mohammad Ahmadi together with his deputy. The two men had led the Thursday night and Friday morning attack on the students.
But this solution, which represented a compromise hammered out within the Supreme Council for National Security (SCNS) between the hard-liners and the reformists, did not satisfy the students, who later made it clear that they will not settle for less than the resignation and "exemplary punishment" of the commander of the Revolutionary Guard in person, General Hedayat Lotfian.
Violent student demonstrations broke out in various Iranian cities this week to protest police brutality in the country's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution (photos: AFP, AP)
At the end of a stormy day-long meeting Saturday chaired by Khatami, the SCNS assured the students that those responsible for the bloody, savage attack had now been arrested. But still no names were named.
"This was a great mistake, on the part of both the president and the conservatives. This compromise solution brings back bad memories. It reminds us of the tragic events of last November and December, when a number of dissident politicians and intellectuals were murdered," one Iranian observer noted. "Despite firm pledges at the time from both Khatami and the conservatives, none of the clerics who issued the fatwas has ever been identified. This week's events are a repeat of that scenario. They assured the students they would bring the culprits to trial, and they have failed to do so."
In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, a member of the Union's Solidarity Office, the paramount students' organisation, said that their latest demands were as follows. First, the arrest of General Lotfian. Next, the removal of Head of Radio and Television Ali Larijani, because of his support for the conservatives, the organisation's negative attitude towards the protest movement and the news blackout he had imposed (in fact, as the students know, Iranian radio and television, like all other key public service departments, are under the direct control of Khamenei himself).
The students also called for the lifting of the ban on the Salam daily and the transfer of certain of the supreme guide's powers and prerogatives to the president.
Eyewitnesses speaking by mobile phones described the Sunday demonstrations as a "repetition" of the final days of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, with ordinary people joining the students in the streets, shopkeepers closing their stores, others providing demonstrators with food and cold water, motorists honking their horns and flashing their lights, and religious leaders echoing the Shah's notorious statement, "I have heard the voice of your revolution". These were exactly the sentiments expressed this week by the ultra-fundamentalist Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the extravagant head of the judiciary, and Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of the Council of Guardians and Khamenei's Representative for universities, when they spoke of their "regret" at the attack on the dormitories. Both men conveniently forgot to mention the role of the Ansar hooligans, just as they avoided condemning the action of the Revolutionary' Guards.
President Khatami also expressed "deep regret'', calling the assault on the students an "ugly and bitter incident'' and promising that he will pursue investigations until light has been shed on all aspects of the event and appropriate action taken.
There were also reports from the holy city of Qom that some senior clerics had come out in support of the students, closing their seminary lectures in protest. Political organisations in Iran and opposition forces outside the country unanimously condemned the attack on the students and called on the authorities to punish "all those responsible, both those who issued the orders and those who carried them out."
Reacting to the assault by the government-backed para-military brigades of the Hizbollah and the official security forces, the Student Movement Co-ordination Committee of Iran has warned the Islamic hierarchy that the students will have to exchange their peaceful protest for a "revolutionary approach" if the attacks continue.
Meanwhile, however, the ban on the daily Salam is still in place, despite the withdrawal of the complaint lodged by the Intelligence Ministry. Iranian journalists were planning to stage a one-day strike on Tuesday to protest the closure of the pro-reform newspaper, the Iranian press reported Sunday.
In solidarity with the students, the Chancellor of Tehran University Mansour Khalil Araqi and the deans of all the faculties tendered their resignations en masse, and were planning to stage a sit-in Monday morning at the university mosque. President Khatami meanwhile rejected the resignation of Mostafa Mo'in, minister of culture and higher education. Mo'in had resigned Saturday in protest at the violence that was used against the students by the security forces.
