AUTHORITIES BANNED ALL DEMONSTRATIONS IN IRAN
TEHRAN 26 Nov. (IPS) Iranian university’s were reported calm for the second straight day on Tuesday, as the authorities imposed a total ban on all students demonstrations, pending the Judiciary’s handling of the death verdict imposed on Mr. Hashem Aqajari, a university professor accused of blasphemy.
Hojjatoleslam Hoseyn Mirmohammad-Sadeqi
, a spokesman for the Judiciary, announced Monday that following the order from Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, the Judiciary has decided to review the case of the reformist professor.
Reformist parties also urged the students to act with caution and stop further demonstrations, fearing that unrest would give hard line clerics a pretext to declare a state of emergency.
Sa’id Hajarian, a leader of the Islamic Iran Particpation Front (IIPF), Iran’s largest political organisation supporting President Mohammad Khatami, told a press conference "certain people are ready to declare the country to be in a state of emergency".
Though he did not name anyone, but many people consider the former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to be behind the plan.
Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is the Chairman of the powerful Expedience Council and a close adviser to the leader showed his hand for the first time, warning the Basij to be on guard against the US "Satan" which is, he said, "hiring its cavalry and foot soldiers to abuse the situation".
Bowing to growing protests movement by the students as well as the public and international denouncing the death verdict, Ayatollah Khameneh'i, in a move to diffuse the situation before it gets out of control, ordered the Judiciary to review the case.
But the students continued with the protests, insisting that not only they wanted the Chef of the Judiciary, the Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mahmood Hashem-Shahroodi apologise to the professor and the university, but also that the authorities accept a national referendum allowing the Iranians to choose their desired regime.
Pressed by the hard line wing of the ruling conservatives, Ayatollah Khameneh'i then warned the students that if they don’t behave, he would call on the popular forces, meaning the Basij and the thugs, to deal with them and to prove that he meant business, on Sunday, thousands of the volunteers and plaine-clothe thugs known as the Ansar Hezbollah, demonstrated in Tehran, denouncing the students' protests.
On Friday, another influential cleric in Ayatollah Ali keshkini, the Speaker of the assembly of Experts has openly accused the protesting students to be "dancing with American music" and being "drunk with the smell of American dollars".
Student leaders said heads of universities had refused to give permission for more campus rallies and the Interior Ministry refusing public demonstrations.
"It is a decision, approved by the Supreme Council on National Security, not to have any more gatherings", Deputy Science Minister Qolam-Reza Zarifian told the pro-conservative, but "Entekhab" newspaper.
"Now the court's verdict has entered a new stage after the supreme leader's initiative", Zarifian argued, adding: "We have asked officials to convince students to prevent gatherings".
The Science Ministry is responsible for running Iran's universities, and the deputy minister argued that officials were eager to prevent the protests spiralling out of control.
"The close cooperation between the science Minsitry, security forces and the intelligence ministry did not allow the crisis turn into a national crisis or a disaster worse than the July student unrest," Zarifian told the paper.
However, at least one student’s leader said though demonstrations have been abandoned for now, but the student did not rule out the possibility that they would start again, "depending on the outcome of the courts review". ENDS AQAJARI VERDICT REVIEWD 261102