At present, the protest movement that took birth in the universities, notably in Tehran, didn't overflow in the streets, except in rare exceptions, because of an impressive police presence. It doesn't have taken the dimension of the fever that had scorched the streets of the capital and several other cities of the country in July 1999, before being choked by a violent repression that made three victims and driven 1.500 arrests officially.

But the discontent is the same. In 1999, it had for origin the closing of "Salâm", a reformist newspaper. Today, it is the condemnation to death, on 6 November, of university professor Hashem Aqajari, accused of blasphemy and apostasy, and calling for "Protestantism in Islam", that put fire to the powders.

Whereas the revolt of 1999 had lasted six days and had been the first major movement of contestation of the régime, the one that took birth a month ago continue to persist, though in a sporadic way and without propagating itself to the population.

The movement however reflects a deep uneasiness and has turn into direct critique of the very foundations of the Islamic régime. "The main reason of the downfall of the former régime was the resistance of the students and intellectuals that demanded freedom, justice and truth", warned Mohammad Reza Khatami, vice-president of the Parliament and brother of President Mohammad Khatami.

"The students estimate that there is a big ditch between the controlling class and the nation. This ditch is dangerous and could bring the fall of the system because student’s most important demands is the establishment of a real and permanent democracy", explain Reza Delbari, leader of the Islamic Association of the students of the Amir Kabir University in Tehran, one of the high places of the frond.

The mollahs understood that their survival was at stake, even though their power is not about to vacillate. At every gathering, the authorities have used the bassijis (the mobilised ones), the Islamic militia that is said to have several millions of members. Created by (Grand Ayatollah Roohollah) Khomeini in 1979 to defend the new régime, this body of volunteers intervenes in a sinewy way in the meetings and the corteges to bring back the Islamic order. Also, the police surround the academic centres and control all entries and the outlays. The balance of powers is so disproportionate that one doesn't see how the situation could escape truly the authorities.

Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, the supreme guide of Republic, warned the students that their action "won't lead anywhere". He denounced "these hecklers" at "the enemy's payroll, outside or inside". As a leitmotif, the theory of the "plot" came out again. And often, as it was again the case in November, one exposes the coffins of the "martyrs" of the war against Iraq unearthed on the fields of battle or returned by Baghdad. Frequently, these ceremonies serve to exhort the fiber of the sacrifice in the name of the revolution and to reinforce the feeling of national unity.

But fourteen years after the end of war (1980-1988), the population doesn’t follow. "It is tired of the war and the revolution. It is for this reason that the student’s movement remain marginal, not attracting people’s adherence. "The people are not ready to pay for the price of another political upheaval that risks to be bloody", explain a political expert who wishes to keep anonymity.

Having a majority in the Parliament, President Khatami had a text aiming to reform the electoral law in order to prevent the rejection of reformer candidates by the hard line conservatives, adopted. A second text would give the possibility to the reformers to intervene in the decisions of justice. But due to the conservatives’ upper hand on the levers of the power, these two projects hardly have any possibilities to see the day in their present shape. Still according to the same poll, 78% of the interrogated people wish that the man that one wanted to compare sometimes to Gorbachev were firmer.

Are the reformers therefore able to bring any change? Not to the eyes of the students, nor of a good number of the population.

In these conditions, facing the conservatives hanging on to the power, the perspectives of change appear rather thin. "We are especially threatened by a political emptiness that is left to us by a crisis of legitimacy and a lack of alternative. The feeling of revolt is permanent but it is expressed by the disenchantment and frustration", summarise Ramin Jahanbegloo, a researcher in political philosophy. The blockage appears total and no one can predict in which manner will evolve the present crisis.

Editor's note: The French influential daily "Le Monde" carried the above article on its 19 December 2002 issue

Highlights and phoneitsation of names are by IPS