The protesters were marking the third anniversary of the authorities barbaric crackdown on a peaceful demonstration of students protesting the closure of the daily "Salam" (Peace), then the only newspaper calling for reforms.

Witnesses, contacted by telephone, told Iran Press Service that the protesters chanted slogans such as "Khameneh'i, vacate the throne" or "Leave Palestine alone, Think of the Iranian people" and demanded freedom for political prisoners, including dozen of prominent journalists and the re-apparition of tens of pro-reform and independent publications, closed "in bundle" on April 2000.

They also confirmed that the demonstrations were "the worst unrest seen in Tehran and major cities for nearly a year".

The attack on the student’s dormitories left hundreds of students wounded and at least one student was killed.

The raid and the savage beating of the students, some of them thrown out from the windows, led to six days of unabated demonstrations against both the Islamic Republic and its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, who, in accord with President Mohammad Khatami, ordered to put down the uprising at "any cost".

As a result, 1,500 students were arrested, jailed and tortured to death.

The Tuesday demonstration was organised almost "instantaneously" despite a ban on any gatherings or rallies decided by the government of Mr. Khatami, whom the foreign media describes as "moderate" and "reformist".

After the Interior Ministry banned demonstrations, the Office for Consolidating Unity (OCU), Iranian students largest pro-reform organisation announced on Sunday it would refrain from holding a "silent rally" if it would lead to "social disturbances", the independent students news agency ISNA reported.

"Demonstrators hurled stones at the plainclothes men and the Basij, who, armed with rifle, knives, electric cable and bicycle chains, clashed with the protesters, injuring many of them and taking "hundreds" to police stations and Revolutionary Guards barracks.

Police confirmed "several" arrests. One female photographer and several young people were seen beaten by Islamic Basij militants who also occupied the centre of the square, washed themselves ritually and prayed, the independent Tehran-based "Iranreporter" website reported.

Some foreign journalists reporting from the Iranian capital for British, French, German, Belgian and Swiss publications run the site.

One eyewitness told the Persian service of the BBC that some students had gathered in a shrine near Tehran to mark their "sympathy" with the families of the "brave fellow students, both killed, wounded and arrested".

However, some observers denounced the action of these media as "unconsidered and irresponsible", noting that by urging people to demonstrate against the unpopular and destabilised Islamic regime, they in fact help the hard liners to be ready and on alert for banning all "legitimate demands for changes". 

Iranian dailies comment widely on the raid on a dormitory by vigilantes and police three years ago, with pro-reform dailies observing that the case of the bloody night raid and the main question of who ordered the attack would never find an answer.

"The same as none of those who ordered the chain massacre of politicians and intellectuals have not been identified, those behind the 9 July (1999) attack on the students would remain unpunished", the pro-reform "No Rooz" wrote.

Writing in this paper, Mr. Hamid Reza Jala'ipoor, the publisher of several banned dailies, sees the 1999 attacks on the students as particularly brutal.

"Even at the height of the repression under the Pahlavi regime, the crushing of students was not on such a scale", he observed, adding that whereas repression of students in other countries "occurs in broad daylight when they are challenging the state in the streets", the Iranian students were attacked in their beds.

Another reformist daily, "Hayat No" (New Life), describes the events three years ago as a "turning point in Iran's student movement".

"On 9 July 1999, the demands of the student movement changed from revolutionary demands to democratic demands", the paper's editorial says, noting that three years after the events the Interior Ministry still does not have the courage to issue a permit for a peaceful rally.

But conservatives-controlled papers defended the crackdown on student's rebellion, describing it as a "rebellion exploitatively carried out in the name of students".

"One has to hope that the Interior Ministry's wise decision to ban all rallies on 9 July will become an irreversible precedent that will apply to all subsequent years", the hard line evening daily "Keyhan" said.