Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Students shake Tehran

		21 - 27 November 2002 Issue No. 613 Region	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Students shake Tehran
Angry student protests in Tehran raged for a second week, following the death sentence against reformist academic Hashem Aghajari. Azadeh Moaveni reports

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Members of the Basij militia clash with reformist students at Tehran's Sharif university
About 5,000 students, according to the state news agency, clashed at Tehran University with hard-line security forces last week, as fears mount that student unrest would trigger a harsh crackdown with painful political implications for the beleaguered reform movement.
Student leaders said their protests -- triggered by the death sentence issued by a hard- line court against reformist academic Hashem Aghajari -- would not stop with the demand for Aghajari's release, but would continue until all prisoners of conscience were released, and the broader political freedoms demanded by the reform movement were finally granted.
The political crisis began when Aghajari was declared an apostate, for a speech in which he criticised the authoritarian grip of the hard-line clergy, and called for a separation of religion and state. Students became increasingly bold in their calls, chanting against hard-line regime heavy-weights like the judiciary chief and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Their slogans reflected a depth of anger underestimated by reformists in previous months and a growing radicalisation of their demands.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei intervened two weeks ago to defuse the crisis, suggesting that the death sentence might be repealed. But he also warned vaguely against the "people's forces" being used to quell any group that stepped out of line. The comments were interpreted as a warning against students who might take their protests to the streets; suggesting that hard-line vigilante forces called the Basij would be called in to crush them. Reformists chose to interpret the supreme leader's reference as a warning to hard-line groups that a popular referendum would be called on the question of reform if the conservative establishment continued to use its power in the courts to thwart liberals and their political project.
Khamenei ordered a review of the court decision against Aghajari -- a sign of how seriously the protests registered across the Islamic Republic's political establishment. Iranian students have not demonstrated fiercely in over three years, since the summer of student riots in 1999 revealed the precarious nature of the regime's legitimacy. While few in Iran believed the death sentence would actually be carried out, the verdict somehow managed to ignite a dormant student movement that has seen and ignored similar judicial outrages in months past. Reformists are using the students' anger as a political tool, reminding conservatives just how dependent the regime's stability is on the popular mandate of the pro-reform government.
Iranian police barred reporters working for foreign publications from entering the university where the protests were held. A hard-line press judge also reportedly summoned editors of leading newspapers and warned them against coverage of the demonstrations. Daily newspapers have conspicuously refrained from splashing the protests across their front page. Many of these papers are run by active reformists, who stick closely to the reformists' political strategy of caution.
The clashes have not been limited to Tehran, but have occurred at universities around the country. As of early last week, the major student group, the Office for Consolidating Unity, had no plans for further protests.
Prominent reformists, who have strong ties to the student group, typically pressure student leaders to discourage their rank and file from major demonstrations, which they fear could spiral out of hand and possibly derail the reformist political agenda of the next two months. The Interior Ministry, dominated by reformists, refused to issue permits for the student protests.
President Mohamed Khatami has introduced two controversial new bills aimed at limiting the political power of the hard-line clerical establishment. One bill would expand his executive powers as president, another would curtail the vetting powers of the Guardian Council in elections. Both are expected to trigger a major political confrontation over the division of power in the Islamic Republic.
The importance of the legislative showdown can hardly be overestimated. President Khatami has threatened to resign if the proposed laws are blocked, and the reformist majority in parliament has signalled its willingness to do the same. Close aides to Khatami insist the president is not bluffing, but set upon resignation should his last attempts to obtain more power fail.

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