Low-key
protests at Iran's colleges
Robin
Wright, Los Angeles Times
Tehran -- Mounting a challenge to the Islamic
republic's religious leaders, students have launched a campaign of
peaceful civil disobedience on university campuses across Iran,
demanding the release of dissidents and calling for an end to five years
of political paralysis on reform.
Thousands of students mobilized Wednesday for the fifth day of
sit-ins, this time on the tree-lined campus of Amir Kabir University of
Technology, Tehran's leading technical institute.
Organizers said they intended to continue the demonstrations until
Students' Day on Dec. 5, which would make this the longest sustained
opposition protest since the 1979 revolution.
The demonstrations in Tehran differ from the 1999 protests that led
to bloody confrontations and deaths when students tried to march off
campus. Leaders of that protest are still in jail. This time, students
are calling for calm and have shifted the sit-ins among campuses, with
students from other universities marching to join them.
"We're not looking for another revolution," said Yashar
Ghajar, an organizer from the Islamic Students' Association and one of
several speakers. "We're looking for freedom of expression -- and
freedom after expression."
The trigger for the protests was the death sentence handed down last
week against leading reformer and popular history Professor Hashem
Aghajari for questioning the powers of Iran's hard-line clergy, who
ultimately control the country. The charges also included blasphemy.
But the protests have quickly taken on a broader agenda -- and spread
to a half-dozen cities, including Isfahan, Tabriz, Hamadan and Unmiyeh.
Many professors have not shown up for classes, indicating their support
for the students, analysts here say.
"Our main goal is not just the Aghajari case," said Roozbeh,
a mechanical engineering student who asked that his surname be withheld.
"This is a protest against the regime's behavior, especially on
human rights, and the closed political atmosphere throughout the
country."
"We've waited five years for change, and little has
happened," he said of the 1997 election of President Mohammad
Khatami, who pledged major democratic reforms but has been blocked
repeatedly by religious conservatives.
Khatami weighed in Wednesday, saying the verdict "never should
have been issued at all."
"Under the current circumstances, no measures should be taken
that promote tension," he said after a Cabinet meeting, Iranian
television reported. Over the weekend, almost two-thirds of parliament,
also dominated by reformers, urged the judiciary to overturn the death
sentence.
But students say they are now increasingly unhappy with Khatami and
other reformers, despite support for their political ideas.
"The whole student body is unhappy with Khatami, not because
he's not an honest man, but we need more than honesty," said a
21-year-old student who requested anonymity. "We need someone who
solves our problems."
Aghajari got into trouble for a June speech in Hamedan, the historic
center of Iran, for suggesting that Islam could be interpreted or
adapted according to the times and that interpretations by earlier
clerics were not necessarily sacred. Aghajari was tried at a closed
court without a jury and sentenced to be hanged.
Through his attorney, Aghajari said Wednesday that he would not
appeal the death sentence. That decision, analysts said, could force the
government to back down or face greater unrest.
