By Michael Theodoulou
Times Online
June 17, 2003
IN A sprawling city of more than ten million people, a few thousand people taking to the streets of Tehran for nightly demonstrations would hardly seem to represent a significant threat to Iran's clerical rulers. However, the regime will be deeply concerned by the nature, timing and composition of the demonstrations. Unrest in the past was caused by specific incidents and the student-led protests were organised. This time they have been a largely spontaneous expression of widespread frustration and anger, suggesting that further protests could be easily ignited and spread unless tensions are eased by political and social change. For once students have made up only a minority of protesters, who came from a cross-section of Tehran's population.
Many families, particularly in the initial protests last week, have taken part but mostly remained in their cars to avoid clashes with pro- regime militiamen, honking their horns in support of more adventurous youths. One witness said on the internet: "I can see fathers hand in hand with their wives and children in the streets. They seem both frightened and happy." Another wrote: "We could hardly open our eyes and breathe because of the teargas. I could see about 20 motorcyclists riding here and there shouting and trying to catch people in the street. Mothers were crying and trying to find their sons, cars in traffic were pushing their horns to show partnership in the protest, but motorcyclists tried to stop them by threatening them."
The slogans chanted on the streets have been among the most daring ever heard, with some evencalling for the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. For the first time, too, there have been calls for the resignation of the reformist President Khatami, reflecting the growing disillusion of many who twice voted him to power in the hope that he would be able to liberalise the Islamic system. Some younger protesters have refused to be intimidated by the hardline militias, the most-feared of which is the Ansar Hezbollah, the Followers of the Party of God, who carry batons and chains and arrive in a squeal of rubber on large motorcycles. In one clash, protesters with sticks attacked a group of Hezbollah militants and set fire to their motorcycles.
The unrest apparently peaked on Saturday night, when Islamic vigilantes wielding knives and iron bars attacked students in a university dormitory, injuring 80. A protective cordon has since been thrown up around the dormitory while, in a further move to defuse tensions, the authorities arrested a notorious Ansar Hezbollah leader.
Without cohesion or obvious leadership, the protests do not currently represent a serious challenge to the regime, analysts said. "There's no central driving momentum," a European diplomat in Tehran said. "People are going out in groups and shouting and getting beaten up from time to time. There's no sense of a pre-revolutionary atmosphere, with nationwide strikes or anything."
The streets of Tehran have also been quiet by day, with the authorities quick to clean up the signs of unrest that have taken place overnight when tough security measures are in place around the capital's universities.
Iranian officials claim that the protests have been organised by a "group of rioters" and orchestrated by America, although Ayatollah Khamenei claimed yesterday that American influence was in decline. "Despite their propoganda, the United States is on the verge of collapse and resembles a mountain of ice which is melting," he was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
The protestors have been at pains to counter accusations that they are stooges helping the US to destabilise the Islamic republic. "This is a student movement, not an American movement," hundreds of students chanted outside Tehran University.
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