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KHAMENEH'I CHOSES THE STICK AGAINST STUDENTS
By Safa Haeri
PARIS 13th July (IPS)
Between the stick and carrots, the ruling but crumbling Iranian ayatollahs chose the stick. By banning all demonstrations as from today Tuesday, they showed their determination to ignore the student's, and the public aspiration for more freedom and the rule of law and democracy.
"Due to the abuse of some unfavourable elements who want to disrupt the tranquillity of the residents of Tehran and foment turmoil, the law enforcement and security forces have been notified to effectively prevent any and all those who want to stage a demonstration or a sit-in and those who disrupt the peace and create turmoil will be arrested and handed over to the appropriate judicial authorities", a communiqué from the Office of the Governor of Tehran warned the students, adding that no form of gatherings was allowed nor any permission granted to hold any sort of rallies on Tuesday. "Therefore any such assembly is illegal", the communiqué further added.
But what about Wednesday, when the conservatives have announced big demonstrations in support of the ayatollah Khameneh'i in front of the University? The decision to ban all public demonstrations was issued after the Law Enforcement Forces, backed this time by the Ansar Hezbollah militia and Ministry of Intelligence crack Special Anti-riot Units stormed the Tehran University campus with extensive use of tear gas, while helicopters were hovering overhead. More than 50 students have been arrested.
Following violent clashes, the students smashed the famous tribune erected in the campus and from where conservative ayatollahs would address the nation on Fridays.
One anonymous called using a mobile telephone from the campus told Iran Press Service "the whole area is clouded by gas, there are several injured, please help, help with medicine and drugs, please call doctors. Inform the world; inform all news agencies"…
Throughout the day, more than a thousand students, their faces covered by masks, fought a running battle with baton-wielding Iranian security forces and the hard-line vigilantes who broke up a peaceful rally last Thursday. In Thursday's incident, dozens were injured and at least one person was killed.
The order to the LEF, security services and other vigilante para-military forces to crackdown students protest was issued by the ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i in his capacity as the Supreme Commander of all the Iranian Armed Forces, and as the unrest had spread to all other major cities, including Tabriz, where one dead was reported, Mash-had, where students clashed with LEF forces, Shiraz, Hamadan, Rasht, Esfahan etc. He issued the orders as he was calling the students "his sons", telling the nation how his heart had been hurt by the savage attack of the same combined forces against students dormitories on last Thursday night, killing at least five students, wounding another 200 and making more than 500 arrests.
Mr. Khameneh'i unleashed the LEF and the Ansar against students who were urging him to sack General Hedayatollah Lotfian, the Commander of the LEF, as he was telling them "please, stay calm and cool even you hear (people) insulting me, or they tore my pictures". But it was obvious that considering himself the representative of God on earth and leader of all the Muslims world-wide, (valye amre moslemin jahan) even if he is a Shi'ite and the Shi'ites form the minority branch of Islam, with less than 200 millions in the ocean of over one billion Muslims, most of them Sunnis who consider the Shi'a as heretics, he could not in any way have tolerated the insults (murderers of Foruhar, under the Leader's Garb, criminals of Ansar, supported by the Leader) and all the humiliating words ushered on him by some demonstrators.
For reasons of his own, President Mohammad Khatami also welcomed the ban.
He is reported to be in contact with representative of major Student's organisations, including Mr. Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, the jailed leader of the main Union's Solidarity Office.
So far, the ayatollah Khameneh'i had adamantly refused to satisfy any of the students demands: A) General Lo.tfian is still the Commander of the LEF, mounting new bloody assaults against the students and B) the daily "Salam" remain closed by order from the Clergymen Special Tribunal, despite the fact that the Intelligence Ministry had withdrew its original complaint against the paper.