Tens of thousands protest in Iran, battling police

 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Dec. 7, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran – Security forces and militiamen clashed with
thousands of protesters shouting "death to the dictator"
outside Tehran University on Monday, beating them with
batons and firing tear gas on a day of nationwide student
demonstrations, witnesses said.

The rallies were the largest in months, bringing tens of thousands out on
more than a dozen campuses around the country and in several major squares
in Tehran as university students — a bedrock of support for the pro-reform
movement — energized the opposition. The anti-government movement has been
reeling under a fierce crackdown since turmoil erupted over the disputed
presidential election in June.

Thousands of riot police as well as forces of the elite Revolutionary
Guard and their allied Basij militiamen flooded the area around Tehran
University since the morning, trying to seal off the campus from the
outside world and prevent unrest from spilling out into the streets.

Authorities covered the tall fence around the university with banners and
signs bearing slogans from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hiding
whatever took place inside. Cell phone networks around the universities
were shut down, and police and Revolutionary Guard surrounded entrances,
checking IDs of anyone entering to bar opposition activists, witnesses
said.

"There's anxiety that there will be violence and shooting. I shout slogans
and demonstrate but try not to provoke any clash with the security,"
Tehran University student Kouhyar Goudarzi told The Associated Press in
Beirut by telephone. "We are worried."

The fiercest violence was on the streets outside Tehran University.
Thousands or protesters massed in support of the students, some chanting
"death to the dictator," witnesses said. Footage posted on YouTube showed
some protesters burning pictures of Khamenei — breaking a major taboo
against insulting the supreme leader, who stands at the pinnacle of Iran's
clerical leadership.

Riot police fired tear gas and Basij militiamen, some on motorcycles,
charged the crowds. The plainclothes Basijis beat protesters on their
heads and shoulders as the crowd scattered. They regrouped on nearby
street corners, setting tires and garbage on fire to ward off the stinging
tear gas. Nearby, protesters and Basijis pelted each other with large
stones, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of
retaliation.

Shots were heard on nearby Enghelab Street, witnesses said. Pro-opposition
Web sites reported that at least one protester was wounded in the area,
but the reports could not be independently confirmed.

Inside Tehran University, hard-line students loyal to the government
scuffled with protesters and some fist-fights broke out. In one photo
obtained by The Associated Press, a pro-reform student wearing a green
headband had blood streaming down his face after a beating. A young woman
overcome by tear gas slumped to the ground as two other students tried to
help her.

Several thousand students marched through the campus, many of them wearing
surgical masks or scarves over their faces to protect against tear gas,
photos from the scene obtained by the AP showed. Some wore green
wristbands or waved green balloons, the color of the opposition movement
led by Mir Hossein Mousavi.

At the same time, the hard-line students — numbering about 2,000 — held
their own march through the university. They waved pictures of Khamenei or
Iranian flags and chanted "death to the hypocrites," a reference to
Mousavi and other opposition leaders.

Protests erupted at seven other universities in Tehran and on campuses on
at least six other cities, the New York-based International Campaign for
Human Rights in Iran reported.

At Tehran's Amir Kabir University, Basiji militiamen entered the campus
and tried to break up a march by students, witnesses said. The Basijis
pushed and shoved the students, dragging some away. At Sharif University,
Tehran's premier technology university, thousands of students blocked the
main road leading into the campus, witnesses said.

Thousands more demonstrated at Tehran's Polytechnic University, denouncing
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with chants of: "You traitor Mahmoud ... you
destroyed our homeland."

There was no immediate word on arrests or injuries from the unrest.

Journalists working for foreign media organizations, including the AP,
were banned from covering Monday's protests. They were told late Saturday
by the Culture Ministry that their press cards would be suspended for
three days starting Monday. Authorities also slowed Internet connections
to a crawl in the capital. For some periods on Sunday, Web access was
completely shut down — a tactic that authorities have resorted to
periodically in the post-election period.

On the eve of the demonstrations, Mousavi threw his support behind the
marches, declaring that his movement was still alive and that the clerical
establishment was losing legitimacy in the Iranian people's minds.

The protests were the largest in months — bigger than the last major
rallies on Nov. 4. The turnout showed how the young, and particularly
university students, have become the most fervent proponents of street
action.

Mousavi and fellow pro-reform politicians have struggled to keep their
movement's enthusiasm stoked after the fierce crackdown launched after the
disputed elections, which the opposition says Ahmadinejad stole from
Mousavi by fraud. In the weeks after the election, hundreds of thousands
marched in the street against Ahmadinejad, but the protests were crushed
by a wave of arrests against protesters, politicians and activists.

Since then, the opposition has only managed to hold smaller protests of
several thousands — and only by timing the marches to coincide with
significant national events to help drum up a crowd. Monday's protests
were held on National Students Day, an annual occasion when student
rallies are traditionally held.

The supreme leader, who has final say on all state matters, accused the
opposition Sunday of causing divisions in the country and creating
opportunities for Iran's enemies.

Authorities have arrested well over 100 student leaders in past weeks,
looking to blunt Monday's protests. On Saturday, police detained 15 women
from the Committee of Mourning Mothers, which groups relatives of
protesters who have been killed in Iran's postelection crackdown. The
women were arrested at a Tehran park where they have held weekly protests
for months, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

Students at Tehran University played a major role in street demonstrations
in support of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled to pro-U.S. shah
and brought clerics to power. But in the past decade, universities have
become strongholds for the pro-reform opposition, which seeks to reduce
the clerics' domination of politics.

___

AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi in Beirut contributed to this report.