The reported fatalities have come amid a brutal crackdown on students, apparently aimed at quelling a wave of campus rebellions that authorities fear could spill over to the wider population. A Farsi website, Balatarin, carried an unconfirmed report that seven people had been killed in the southern city of Shiraz following confrontations with riot police at the local university. Five busloads of plainclothes officers had been sent to confront the demonstrators during Sunday’s protests, but were said to have been unable to prevent them from being joined by members of the public and marching to one of the city’s main squares. It is unclear whether all those said to have died were students.
