Thousands Protest Raid on Iranian Students

One day after a violent police raid on a Tehran University dormitory, thousands of demonstrators protested Saturday outside the school, demanding the resignation of powerful hard-liners in Iran’s Islamic government.

“Death to despotism! Death to dictators!” protesters chanted in Tehran, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity by telephone.

By late Saturday, 25,000 people, students and others, had gathered. Their shouts of “students unite” reverberated in the night.

And in a demand that would at any other time have resulted in severe punishment, protesters shouted: “Khamenei must quit,” referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, witnesses said.

Saturday’s protests were provoked by a violent and unauthorized police raid Friday on a Tehran University dormitory, apparently with the backing of the hard-liners. At least 20 people were hospitalized and 125 students were arrested.

The developments are the most serious in a strident power struggle between Khamenei’s hard-line clergymen and allies of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who wants to give more political freedom to Iranians.

On Saturday, students rushed to the Interior Ministry, not far from the university, and demanded to speak to moderate Deputy Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh. He promised that he and other senior ministry personnel would resign if officials behind the raid went unpunished, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, Khatami presided over an emergency meeting of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, which issued a statement saying all detained students had been freed, and condemned officials who ordered the raid.

It said a committee had been formed to identify and punish officials who had ordered the raid and pledged to “strongly confront” vigilantes allied with the hard-liners who had attacked the students, reported Tehran radio, monitored in Dubai.

Higher Education Minister Mostafa Moin, a reformist, handed in his resignation Saturday, but state television quoted an “informed source” as saying Khatami would not accept it.

Moin and Tehran University Chancellor Mehdi Khalili Araqihad tendered their resignations in protest against the crackdown, which they said violated all Islamic norms.

The assault on the dorm took place after 200 students demonstrated against an anti-press law and the banning of a reformist newspaper.