Iranian Student Protesters Clash With Police
The New York Times / Nazila Fathi and Robert Worth
07-Dec-2009

Thousands of student protesters gathered at universities in Tehran and other cities across Iran on Monday, chanting anti-government slogans and fighting with the police in the most violent street protests since the summer.

The main entrance to Tehran University was sealed off by security forces, while clashes broke out between protesters and tens of thousands of Basij militia in squares around the city, witnesses and opposition Web sites reported. Protests erupted at universities throughout the country, including Kerman, Mashad, Isfahan and Hamdean. The opposition staged a street rally in Shiraz.

The tenor of the protests was angrier than any in recent months, witnesses said, and the Basij responded with a brutality not seen since the summer months, when protests broke out following the June 12 presidential election, which the opposition has dismissed as fraudulent.

Protesters in Tehran broke out in chants of “death to the dictator” followed by “this is the last warning.” They carried Iranian flags missing the word “allah,” which was added after the 1979 revolution, and burned posters bearing the image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

A crowd of about 1,000 students gathered at a university in Sanandaj, in the Kurdish region of Iran, unusual for an area where security is extremely tight, the Kurdish Rawanews reported. Students in Kerman, in central Iran, shouted “death to dictator,” “azadi,... >>>

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