Renewed student protests in Iran on Saturday, the first in over two weeks, have shown that university activists are still determined to make their voices heard despite tough restrictions, analysts said. Impatient for reforms, activists seized the opportunity of National Student Day to renew demands for political change, posing a dilemma for authorities who since November 20 have signalled their wish to keep a lid on demonstrations.Iran's government had little choice but to let the protests go ahead — but only inside campuses — given that the day marks the killing of three students protesting a 1953 visit by then-US vice president Richard Nixon during the late shah's reign. Student Day on November 7 is normally a symbol of the revolutionary struggle against Iran's monarchy and arch-enemy the United States.
On Saturday, thousands of students were out to mark the occasion, but with more contemporary concerns on their minds and an effort to keep up the momentum built up through protests in November. Those demonstrations, the largest since violent clashes in July 1999, were sparked by the sentencing to death for blasphemy of pro-reform academic Hashem Aghajari by a hardline judge. And just like last month, Saturday's gathering of more than 5,000 was carrying wider demands than just the release of Aghajari, whose sentence is now to be reviewed on order of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The theme was the freeing of all political prisoners, calls for the Islamic republic's judicial chief to resign and demands for a referendum on the country's political future.
Political boundaries were also pushed with some students even chanting slogans against Khamenei. Others targetted President Mohammad Khatami, accused of failing to face up to religious hardliners.
Observers agree that the students at Tehran university, traditionally a hotbed of dissent, were getting bolder. "A few years ago, people were too scared to take to the street. That is no longer the case today, even if they don't have permission," said analyst Said Leylaz. "It's an indication of the discontent."
There's probably something to be said for the best cure for Islamism being to let them have what they're wishing for. The only problem with that is the number of innocent casualties along the way to eventually throwing the mullahs out.