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| Iran |
| Iranian students threaten clerics, last chance for dialog |
| 2003-06-26 |
| JPost - Reg Req'd Disappointed Iranian students issued a "final warning" Thursday to the ruling Islamic establishment, saying their wrath was about to explode as security agents continued arresting classmates in a bid to undermine plans to mark the fourth anniversary of a fatal raid by hard-liners on a university dormitory. Trying to rally before all the student leaders disappear? "We openly declare that these words are the final words of dialogue between the student movement and the ruling establishment," students said in a strongly worded letter addressed to President Mohammad Khatami. Signed Thursday by 106 prominent students, the letter protested the trampling of legitimate freedoms and a government ban on street rallies to mark the July 9, 1999, raid on a Tehran University dormitory that killed one person and injured at least 20 others. The 1999 attacks, led by police and hard-line vigilantes who support Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggered six days of nationwide protests, the worst since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. One of the letter's signatories, Saeed Razavi Faqih, said if Khatami failed to heed the students' warning, the students would even stop recognizing the legitimacy of elected reformists within Iran's ruling establishment. "The rulers should know that confronting the student movement will have a bitter ending for this establishment, which has lost almost all its legitimacy," he said. Khatami, who was elected on a platform of delivering wide social and political reforms, has been criticized by fellow reformers for only deploring — not condemning — attacks two weeks ago by hard-line vigilantes against two Tehran student dormitories. Students criticized Khatami's silence as "painful and disappointing." "We call on you (Khatami) ... to react before it's too late and adopt a reasonable solution, or otherwise have the courage to resign so that you don't justify oppressive policies (of hard-liners) and allow students to settle their accounts with the establishment," the letter said. The protests earlier this month began with students demonstrating against plans to privatize universities and snowballed into broader displays of opposition to Khamenei's clerical establishment. Government authorities have said they arrested about 520 protesters, mostly "hooligans." But students say most of those detained are students. Razavi Faqih said security agents this week detained several more student leaders, including Mahdi Aminizadeh and Abdollah Momeni. The students' letter also accused the Interior Ministry of refusing to permit July 9 street rallies, while university officials have been opposed to holding ceremonies on university grounds. While protesters have regularly condemned unelected hard-line clerics and supported Khatami, the recent student-led protests had for the first time called for the establishment's ouster and denounced Khatami for failing to fulfill promises. Taking Bets: rally crushed by regime or violent uprising? I go for violent uprising, with street killings of the imported Paleo/Soddy thugs |
| Posted by:Frank G |