Iranian Protesters, Hard-liners Clash

Pro-democracy students and hard-line vigilantes clashed with stones and chains outside Tehran University on Saturday, the first anniversary of a bloody police raid on a university dormitory.

Anti-riot police fired tear gas into the crowd after the two sides started battling outside the campus in the capital's downtown district. Several people, bloodied from the fighting, were seen being carried away, most of them with head injuries.

Hundreds of students chanting "death to dictators"—a reference to hard-line opponents of the moderate President Mohammad Khatami—clashed with vigilantes, who numbered around 60.

The clashes came hours after vigilantes attacked a demonstration by students chanting slogans in support of reform and political freedoms. Witnesses said police did not intervene earlier as the vigilantes punched and kicked students in the face. No severe injuries were reported.

The demonstration had been called to mark the anniversary of the July 9, 1999, raid by hard-line security forces on a Tehran University dormitory. The raid triggered six days of nationwide protests by tens of thousands of students—the worst unrest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Hard-liners—who control the police, judiciary and broadcast media—have been trying to stem the push for reform led by Khatami, whose attempts at broadening social and political freedoms, they say, conflict with the country's Islamic ideals.

In Saturday's earlier demonstration, outside the dormitory, police arrested a number of students, saying the gathering took place without Interior Ministry permission, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. It gave no other details.

Students at the demonstration demanded the release of Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, leader of the Islamic Students Association, who was jailed last month and still has not been charged.

The clashes disrupted student plans to mark the anniversary peacefully by handing out flowers in Tehran's streets and lighting candles.

Representatives of the Office for Fostering Unity, Iran's largest student group, visited the homes of leading jailed reformers, writers and political activists and gave their families flowers as a gesture of solidarity, group member Nima Fateh told The Associated Press.

"Our response to violence is offering flowers. We seek to promote the culture of tolerance and respect for opposing views in our society," he said.

In the pre-dawn raid a year ago, hard-line security forces and vigilantes stormed the dorm, killing one person, hours after students rallied against the banning of a liberal newspaper. A police chief and 19 subordinates have stood trial in connection with the hostel raid and are awaiting verdicts.

President Khatami warned in remarks published Saturday that oppression of opposing views does not promote power or stability and could lead to a social explosion.

"To be srong does not mean that if the people don't follow the establishment they should be suppressed by the use of force.…Public dissatisfaction will eventually lead to explosion," Bahar newspaper quoted Khatami as saying. He was speaking Thursday during a tour of central Iran, the paper said.

In a rare public criticism of the immensely popular president, hard-line cleric Mohsen Doagoo was quoted Saturday as calling Khatami's administration a "national disaster."

In the past three months, the conservative judiciary has closed 19 newspapers, most of them pro-reform, and has ordered the detention of several journalists and political activists. The moves are widely seen as a bid by hard-liners in the government to halt Khatami's reformist movement.

By HASSAN SARBAKHSHIAN