THIS IS OUR LAST WORDS WITH A VANISHING REGIME: IRANIAN STUDENTS
TEHRAN 26 June (IPS) In a very strongly worded open letter to the lamed Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, some 106 Iranian students activists warned that a "calamity would engulf the entire Iranian nation" in case "the last bridge between the students and the clerical establishment break down".
"This is probably the last time that the student’s movement addresses the Islamic Republic’s establishment", the students said, protesting to the illegal arrests of students and protesters, their detention at undisclosed jails, suppression of basic freedoms, attacks on dissident activists’ meetings by plainclothes men, events that they say they hold the President for the person responsible to answer.
"We warn you solemnly that these are the last words in the series of dialogue between the student’s movement and the leadership of the Islamic Republic.. if this dialogue is also cut, no doubt a great calamity would befall over the whole of the nation", the signatories warned.
As the letter was published, one of the students leader and member of the Office for Consolidating Unity, Mr. Abdollah Mo’meni was reported arrested by plainclothes men believed to have acted on orders from Mr. Sa’id Mortazavi, Tehran’s Public Prosecutor better known as "The Butcher of the Press", for having ordered the closure of more than 90 independent and pro-reform publications in the past three years.
"You know well that confrontation between the student’s movement with a regime that its legitimacy is about to vanish what kind of destiny reserves for all those are sitting on un-elected, appointed powers, hence, do your best to avoid that fatal day", the students said.
One of the letter's signatories, Sa’id Razavi Faqih, said if Khatami failed to heed the students' warning, they would even stop recognising the legitimacy of elected reformists within Iran's ruling establishment.
The students and the young generation that forms 2/3 of the Iranian 70 million population voted massively for Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami twice in the 1997 and 2001 Presidential elections, but now they have almost "divorced" him, because of his continued silence in face of the hard liner’s open abuse of power.
Reformists around Mr. Khatami accuse the conservatives for blocking the reforms promised by Mr. Khatami, but students and many analysts believe that Mr. Khatami is of a too weak nature to be capable of confronting the hard liners, who are backed by Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i and his immense powers.
"Your silence is painful and disappointing. As the second man in the regime, how do you explain open abductions in the streets; the existence of illegal jails, arbitrary detentions? We call on you to react before it's too late and adopt a reasonable solution, or otherwise have the courage to resign so that you don't justify oppressive policies (of hardliners) and allow students to settle their accounts with the establishment", the signatories told the President.
The letter came as after eleven consecutive nights of protest against the Islamic Republic and its leaders, including both Khameneh'i and Khatami, the movement had dropped to a low level, as the authorities had informed that they would not allow any demonstration for 9 July, the fourth anniversary of the massacre of the students by the ruling clerics.
Government authorities have said they arrested about 520 protesters, mostly "hooligans". But not only the students put the number at more than a thousand, but also say that most of detainees are students.
On Thursday, Mr. Mortazavi said more than 2.000 have been arrested in the last ten days, but he did not say how many of them are students.
The clerical authorities routinely describe the dissidents as "hooligans".
While protesters have regularly condemned un-elected hard line clerics and supported Khatami, the recent student-led protests had for the first time called for the establishment's ouster and denounced Khatami for failing to fulfill promises. ENDS STUDENTS OPEN LETTER 26603