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Iran
Focus
 Tehran, Iran,
Mar. 14 – Police fired tear-gas and used force on Monday to disperse
protesting students at Sharif University of
Technology in Tehran,
eye-witnesses reported.
The disturbances broke out after hundreds of students tried to prevent the
burial of three “unidentified martyrs” on the university campus. The
students, many of them women, carried placards against the takeover of
universities by Islamist groups affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards. These
include the paramilitary Bassij Daneshjui
and Jihad Daneshgahi.
The protestors chanted “students would rather die than be humiliated” as the
whistled and clapped their hands. Students were soon joined by young people
from outside the university, and a chorus of anti-government slogans began.
Security forces resorted to force to disperse the students, and when the
protestors put up a strong resistance, they fired tear-gas. The students
responded by throwing stones and the windows of several faculty buildings
were broken.
In the ensuing violence, several students were beaten up. The chancellor of
the university, an associate of hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad who had backed the plan to bury the
“unknown martyrs” in the university, was booed and jolted by the protesting
students.
In the wake of Monday’s student protests in Sharif University, a government-organised campaign is targeting “seditious elements in
the university who are manipulated by the enemies of the Islamic Republic”.
Government-owned newspapers on Tuesday gave much prominence to statements by
ultra-conservative associations and groups in condemnation of the protesting
students.
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