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Iran Focus  Tehran, Iran, Jul. 09 – Students in the University of Tehran staged a protest on campus on Tuesday, eye-witnesses told Iran Focus in a telephone interview.
The protest erupted outside the main entrance of the university. Several students told Iran Focus that more than 2,000 students took part in the rally. There was a heavy police presence at the scene throughout the day. Mobile phones were confiscated to prevent an outbreak of news of the protest, they said. The students also confirmed to Iran Focus that a large number of members of the public also sought to join the protest but were prevented from doing so by the State Security Forces (SSF). From the early hours of the day, groups of three of more people at the scene were approached and disbanded by the SSF. At approximately 19.30 (local Tehran time) a separate protest broke out in Tehran’s Daneshjoo Park, according to eye-witnesses. There too mobile phones were confiscated by the SSF. Students reached by telephoned said that a separate demonstration erupted at Tehran’s Laleh Park, though details were sketchy. Similar protests are believed to have broken out on several other university campuses across Tehran, including in Polytechnic University - also known as Amir Kabir University – which has been a hotbed of anti-government demonstrations for over a year. Tuesday marked the 9th anniversary of the start of a student-led uprising across Iran which broke out after members of the hard-line Bassij militia and Ansar-e Hezbollah, a paramilitary force that acts as the clerical regime’s storm troopers to put down anti-government demonstrations, raided a dormitory in Tehran University and attacked the students there. One student was killed when he was thrown out of the window in the 1999 raid on the university dorm. The ensuing nationwide protests that erupted came as a shock to Iran’s clerical leaders and lasted for over a week. |
