Thousands of students protest in Tehran, Isfahan, Aghajari, Oroumiyeh and Kerman
etehadchap | 14.11.2002 03:21
For more than 5 days thousands of Iranian students have demonstrated calling for the release of all political prisoners and against a death sentence passed on a reformist Islamist academic, Aghajari. He is alleged to have committed blasphemy during a speech this summer.
Aghajari a close ally of the 'reformist' faction of the regime had questioned the issue of 'imitation of Islamic guidance' (Marjae Taghlid) a pivotal part of Shia Islam.He is reported to have told his audience at a lecture in Hamadan that humans are not monkeys and therefore do not need to imitate anyone.
The demonstrations started on saturday when a group of about 500 students set fire outside the Tehran University campus gates and chanted in unison: "Political prisoners should be released!" and "Our problem is the judiciary!".
On Monday 11th of November a rally by around 1,000 students from Tehran's Tarbiat Modarres University was one of many such protests , some 3000 students gathered at Tehran University, 2000 joined protests in Oroumiyeh and the Universities of Hamadan,Kerman, Isfahan and Tabriz held similar gatherings.
By Tuesday a boycott of lectures at Tehran Unievrsity turned into a demonstartion within the campus where the students shouted slogans against Khamenii, Iran's supreme clerical leader and the previous president Rafsanjani. "You can cut our tongues ... you can take us to jail as you have jailed many other students and scholars, but you can't capture our hearts, you can't prevent freedom of expression and thoughts," a student leader, said to applause.
A leaflet sent by the Islamic student association of Isfahan Sanati University to Workers Left Unity Iran reminds Iran's Islamic leaders that on paper the constitution guarantees the rights of 'communists' in Iran yet even Islamic scholars are not free to express their opnions. Workers Left Unity-Iran gives its full support to the student protest movement in Iran and calls on academics, student organisations, trade unions and political organisations to defend Iranian students demands for political freedom.
Although the death sentence against Aghajari, should be seen as part of an on going battle between various factions of the regime, the fact that a close ally of the Iranian president can be sentenced to death for a harmless comment shows the limitations of 'islamic ' freedom in Iran where tens of thousands of communists and socialists have been executed over the last 23 years for no other crime than opposing a religious state.
13 November 2002 Coordinating Committee of Workers Left Unity - Iran
The demonstrations started on saturday when a group of about 500 students set fire outside the Tehran University campus gates and chanted in unison: "Political prisoners should be released!" and "Our problem is the judiciary!".
On Monday 11th of November a rally by around 1,000 students from Tehran's Tarbiat Modarres University was one of many such protests , some 3000 students gathered at Tehran University, 2000 joined protests in Oroumiyeh and the Universities of Hamadan,Kerman, Isfahan and Tabriz held similar gatherings.
By Tuesday a boycott of lectures at Tehran Unievrsity turned into a demonstartion within the campus where the students shouted slogans against Khamenii, Iran's supreme clerical leader and the previous president Rafsanjani. "You can cut our tongues ... you can take us to jail as you have jailed many other students and scholars, but you can't capture our hearts, you can't prevent freedom of expression and thoughts," a student leader, said to applause.
A leaflet sent by the Islamic student association of Isfahan Sanati University to Workers Left Unity Iran reminds Iran's Islamic leaders that on paper the constitution guarantees the rights of 'communists' in Iran yet even Islamic scholars are not free to express their opnions. Workers Left Unity-Iran gives its full support to the student protest movement in Iran and calls on academics, student organisations, trade unions and political organisations to defend Iranian students demands for political freedom.
Although the death sentence against Aghajari, should be seen as part of an on going battle between various factions of the regime, the fact that a close ally of the Iranian president can be sentenced to death for a harmless comment shows the limitations of 'islamic ' freedom in Iran where tens of thousands of communists and socialists have been executed over the last 23 years for no other crime than opposing a religious state.
13 November 2002 Coordinating Committee of Workers Left Unity - Iran
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