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STUDENTS REVOLT SHOWS ISLAMIC REGIME'S INABILITY HANDLING CRISIS
By Safa Haeri
TEHRAN-PARIS 11TH July (IPS)
As students revolt entered it's fourth straight day Sunday, the siege around the leader of the Islamic Republic, the ayatollah Khameneh'i' further narrowed, with students openly jolting him, accusing him of being behind the "criminals" of the Ansar Hezbollah thugs and calling for his resignation, thus breaking a 20 years old sacred taboo.
"Ansar commits crimes leader supports them",
"Treason, Crime All under the aba (robe) of the leader
"Murderers of Foruhar Under the leader's aba
''Either Islam and the law, or another revolution",
were some of the many colourful, highly signification slogans the angry students would chant during noisy and stormy demonstrations in Tehran, a clear reference to the position of Mr. Khameneh'i as the Supreme Commander of all the Islamic Republic's Armed Forces, including the elements of the Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) and Intelligence Ministry's special anti-riot units and the Ansar men who, late on Thursday night, stormed the students dormitories, clashed with students, set fire to rooms, destroyed all equipment, killed some of them, wounded more than 200 and made 500 arrests
"The aggressive slogans were signs of a new militancy emerging in Iran's student protests", analysts observed.
As the Valye Faqih, or the Jurisconsult, portrayed as the Representative of God on earth and the leader of all Muslims, attacking or even criticising the ayatollah Khameneh'i is considered a major crime punishable by death.
"So far, criticism of Mr. Khameneh'i was limited to closed doors rooms, among friends, in hushed voice. This is the first time that students break this taboo. God has been kicked down on earth. This is a major turning point in the relatively short history of the Islamic Republic, as it shook its very fundaments", commented one Iranian analyst.
The crisis, the most serious the theocratic, repressive Islamic system of Iran had to face, also demonstrated the incapacity of the clerical authorities to deal with the simplest of situations, as a small demonstrations by students protesting the closure of a popular daily turned in less than four days in the regime's most important crisis in the past 18 years, thanks to spoiled clerical officials and rulers used to always dictate, give lessons, punish, but never to dialogue, to learn, to listen.
"Violent clashes, which erupted on the Tehran university campus, plainly reveal one bitter truth in the country's power structure, that is, seeking violence and shunning rationale", the English morning newspaper "Iran" wrote Sunday. "The inability of a great revolution to deal with its sons on a university campus has shocked the international community…"The revolution is currently facing a great crisis", the paper warned, as the protest movement had reached all major Iranian cities, with some of them like Ahvaz, the capital city of the oil-rich Khouzestan Province placed under emergency.
As the students had warned the both the government of President Mohammad Khatami and the conservatives that they would not stop their protest movement unless the commander of the LEF is sacked, arrested and handed over to justice, the authorities bowed, said they had placed under arrest a certain revolutionary guard general named Mohammad Ahmadi and his deputy who led the Thursday night and Friday morning attack on students.
But the compromise solution reached at the Supreme Council for National Security (SCNS) between the hard liners and reformists will not satisfy the students who, latter, made it clear that they want the resignation and "exemplary punishment" of the revolutionary guard general Hedayat Lotfian, the commander of LEF At the end of a stormy, daylong meeting of the SCNS summoned Saturday and chaired by Mr. Khatami; the students were assured that those responsible for the bloody, savage attack had been arrested.But there were no names.
"This was a great mistake by both the President and the conservatives since the compromise solution they had reached at the SCNS meeting was a bad reminder of the sad outcome of the last November-December chain murder of dissident politicians and intellectuals, as, despite firm pledges by Mr. Khatami and the conservatives, none of the clerics who issued the fatwas had been identified, though everyone knows well that the official agents of the Intelligence Ministry who killed the dissidents could not have done so without orders from the leader or his immediate associates. They repeated the scenario. They assured the students they'll get the guilty, but the mountain laid down a mouse" one observer noted.
Every retreat of the regime met more demands from the rebellious students. Talking to Iran Press service, a member of the Union's Solidarity Office, the paramount students organisation cited their latest demands as following, by order of priority:
Actually, like all other key and strategic administrations, the State-controlled Radio and Television is directly controlled by the leader who appoints its chief.
"The leader should take responsibility for the affair. We cannot accept that such an attack with clubs and other weapons was carried out on their own initiative," he added.
Eyewitnesses using 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, shopkeepers closing their stores, others providing demonstrators with food and cold water, motorists honking their horns and putting on the lights and the Shah's famous "I heard the voice of your revolution".
This is exactly what the ultra-fundamentalist ayatollahs Mohammad Yazdi, the extravagant Head of the Judiciary and Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of the Council of Guardians and the leader's Representative for universities were saying when they expressed "regret" about the attack on the dormitories, forgetting the Ansar hooligans in the process and avoiding to condemn the LEF action.
President Khatami also expressed "deep regret'', calling the assault on the students an "ugly and bitter incident'' promising that he will continue investigations until all the aspects of the event are discovered and appropriate action is taken.He had used exactly the same words after the savage murder of Mr. Dariush Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh Eskandari, both leaders of the secularist Iranian People's Party killed with respectively 12 and 21 stroke of the dagger.
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.
Reports from Qom said Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi-Ardebili, former head of the judiciary, and Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sane'i, a former senior prosecutor, had suspended their lectures in protest against the assault on the students. In Shi'ite tradition, senior clerics shut their classes or take sanctuary at holy sites in times of political unrest.
In a statement faxed to Iran Press Service, the Association of Muslim Students says, "Really, what were the student's demands? Is it correct to answer with club and iron bars requests for freedom of expression and press? Demanding thieves, plunderers of the public's wealth be arrested and brought to justice must be answered with bayonet and tear gas? Calling for the release of political prisoners or those who had been thrown in jail because expressing their views must be drawn in the blood? Asking the trial of those who ordered the assassination of dissidents politicians and intellectuals is a crime to be punished with machine gun"?
Iranian political organisations in Iran and opposition forces outside have all condemned the attack on the students and called on the authorities to punish "all the responsible, those who issued the orders and those who carried them".
The pro-Khatami Islamic Iran Solidarity Party (IISP) in a statement condemned Sunday "violation" of the university campus and urged the authorities to identify and punish the agents involved in this ''improper measure''.
"Recent incidents at Tehran University dormitory were attempts to foment chaos and violence", adding that such acts not only will fail to give any result but will further expose the true nature of the pressure groups", the IISP added, according to the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Secretary General of the Association of Militant Clergymen, the hojatoleslam Mehdi Karroubi told the students at the Tehran University dormitory that the government would be able to contain the acts of violence and contrary to the ideas nurtured by some, the government will not allow such acts to continue.
The Servants of Construction Party (SCP) that form the right wing of President Khatami's coalition Government warned the community to be alert of the trend of violent incidents instigated by a section of the law enforcement forces and other pressure groups acting on their own. "They are responsible for creating continued tension which bring about disruption in the activities and programs of the popular government", the statement said.
The women's Association of the Islamic Republic also in a statement condemned the incident and called on the leader and president to instruct relevant officials to "investigate and clarify the case".Facing the assault of the repressive brigades of the Hezbollah and the official forces of the regime, the Student Movement Co-ordination Committee of Iran has warned the Islamic dignitaries that the students will change their peaceful ways of protest to "revolutionary manners" if the attacks of the government backed para-military groups and the security forces continues.
For their part, and as the ban on the daily Salam continue despite withdrawal of a plaint from the Intelligence Ministry, Iranian journalists plan to stage a one-day strike on Tuesday to protest against the closure of the pro-reform newspaper, Iranian press reported on Sunday.
"`We will lay down our pens on Tuesday...and invite our colleagues throughout the country to do likewise,'' said the statement signed by 583 journalists and carried by leading reformist newspapers.
Media sources told Reuters that the strike would effectively close down all the main national dailies, which generally support reformist president Mohammad Khatami, except the conservative newspapers Kayhan, Resalat and Jomhuri-e Eslami.
As, in protest to the attack on the students and in solidarity with them, the Chancellor of Tehran University Mr. Mansour Khalil Araqi and the deans of all Tehran faculties and universities were tendering their mass resignation and planing to stage a sit-in Monday morning at the university's mosque, President Khatami rejected the resignation of Mr. Mostafa Mo'in, Minister of Culture and Higher Education.Mr. Mo'in had resigned Saturday in protest to the violence against the students by the law enforcement forces.
"While apologising to this insult to the sanctity of science and university, I hereby announce that with the aid of the almighty, I will continue investigations until all the aspects of the event are discovered and appropriate action is taken", IRNA quoted Mr. Khatami.