The dozen or so matronly monarchists, some of them mothers of demonstrating students, are becoming a familiar sight at Tehran’s hot-spots.

Pressure from hardliners on the students to give up their protests is being brought to bear from all sides, but it has only encouraged a radical few.

The hard line judiciary, which triggered the protests by sentencing to death an outspoken academic for apostasy, has ordered local journalists not to give detailed reports on the campus demos.

Mostafa Mo’in, Minister for Higher Education, has bowed to the conservatives and urged the students to relent.

IRIB, the state broadcaster also controlled by hardliners, has its own spin, reporting on "illegal gatherings" by "so-called students".

These vented their anger at Modarres University, where the condemned academic, Hashem Aqajari, used to teach, by setting upon an IRIB cameraman, ripping open his tape and sending the contents flying like a streamer.

But more serious pressure is coming from increasing acts of violence against students by the Basij, an Islamist militia, and the shadowy hardmen of Ansar Hezbollah who ride unchallenged on motorbikes without licence plates.

Students at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabayi University on Wednesday abandoned a planned rally when they found extremists waiting for them.

This week, hardliners have attacked and broken up rallies in several cities, including Tehran, Ahwaz and Yasuj. Several students have landed in hospital. A pro-reform MM was also assaulted.

About 1,500 students affiliated to the Basij held their own counter-rally in Tehran University on Tuesday in support of Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, the supreme leader who has come under fire from the reformist students.

The Basiji students did not impress with their numbers, bused in from different colleges, but the message was blunt, a language of religious commitment, of threats, and warnings of collusion by foreign enemies.

"Martyrdom is our honour," bearded men chanted from the right, echoed by ranks of women wrapped in black chadors, segregated to the left.

If the relevant ministers or university chancellors did not restore campus order, their statement said, then the Basijis would.

"Our red line is the Leadership," proclaimed Mohammad Sarshar from the podium, referring to Ayatollah Khameneh’i. The world should know that breaking these lines will cost a huge price".

Conservatives are frustrated that pro-reform rallies have continued, despite the supreme leader’s attempt to restore calm by ordering the judiciary to review Mr. Aqajaris sentence.

But at the same time as the Basijis were gathering, reformists at Modarres University were taking up even more radical chants, criticising the supreme leader, but also Mohammad Khatami, the moderate president whose public silence has angered once faithful supporters.

Mr Khatami has been unable to capitalise on the student movement, to push through his own stalled agenda of political reforms, out of fear that hardliners would stage a repeat of their bloody crackdown on student protests in 1999, which led to widespread rioting.

The sense of looming confrontation is seen in changing dress codes. Some of the young men and women have donned rebellious-looking headbands and mask their faces.

In a way, it is a piece of theatre and they know that their numbers are relatively small 5,000 or so at the biggest rally to date but the radical intent is there.

Abdollah Mo’meni, a member of the central council of the Office to Consolidate Unity (OCU), the main student union, is concerned that events are moving out of control.

"They are creating an intimidating atmosphere to push the student movement back to its passivity. These sorts of things will not be useful for them. Yesterday at Modarres you saw that despite all the restrictions, students jumped over the fences to get in and the slogans were more radical than before."

The weakness of the OFU, which has not recovered from the arrest of its leaders and the 1999 summer of repression, has led to a lack of coordination and clarity in the protests. The OFU demands Mr Aqajaris unconditional release from prison, but other students insist all political prisoners be freed and have extended the agenda to political reform in general.

Editor’s note: The Financial Times published the article on its 20 November issue.

Highlights, phonetisation of names and some editorial touches are by IPS