Iran:
Unrest grows

Protests and demonstrations have been held all over the world demanding 
the release of hundreds students arrested by Iranian authorities for 
demanding democratic changes to the Islamic fundamentalist regime.

The trouble began three weeks ago when Tehran University students led 
peaceful protests against the closure of a leading Liberal daily 
Salam, the day after tough new censorship laws were passed in 
parliament by a majority of just ten votes.

The newspaper had previously exposed the involvement of hardline Islamic 
figures in the government with death squads responsible for the murder of 
several liberal writers and opposition leaders last year.

But the protests escalated with some demanding an end to the Islamic 
republican system, leading to violent clashes with the police and 
supporters of militant Islamic movements. Five students were killed and 
many more injured in the clashes.

Militant Islamic youths supported by the police stormed the University to 
break up a thousands-strong "reform" sit-in protest. The police used tear-
gas and baton charges to take-over the campus and fifty students were 
arrested.

The anti-government demonstrations were the most serious since the 
overthrow of the Shah, and government and Islamic religious leaders moved 
quickly to condemn the students and to stir up a wave of religious and 
nationalist sentiment in opposition to them.

A march by tens of thousands of government supporters was organised through 
the streets of the capital, Tehran.

All unauthorised demonstrations and protests have been banned.

The pro-government demonstrators marched to Tehran University, chanting 
"Death to America!" and other anti-Western slogans.

The reactionary cleric Ayatollah Seyid Al Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the 
Islamic Revolution, denounced the pro-reform students as "vicious people, 
supported by certain bankrupt political groups and encouraged by foreign 
enemies".

He said they were trying to "pave the way for the dominance of the criminal 
United States over our beloved homeland through their mischievous acts".

The student protests were originally called in support of President Muhamad 
Khatami's reformist administration but when more strident demands for 
"democracy" emerged, President Khatami moved to distance himself from the 
protesting students, particularly when the protests began to attract 
support from US Government officials and the Western media.

President Khatami won the elections two years ago on a platform of modest 
reform. But his moves against corruption in the government and secret 
police and his support for a relaxation of the rigid political and social 
system established after the 1979 Iranian revolution have put him into 
conflict with the hard-line Islamic clergy and their supporters.

Khatami called on the people to distance themselves from the unrest and 
give the government a free hand to deal with the problem. But he conceded 
that the police raid on the university campus was "extraordinarily bitter 
and unacceptable".

Khatami promised to seriously investigate the incident. Two senior police 
officers have been dismissed.

Hasan Rowhani, deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament, on the other hand, 
blamed the trouble on "saboteurs and anarchists" who, he said, would be 
confronted and "made an example of".

Grave fears are now held for the hundreds of students who have been 
arrested.