US accused of stirring up student protests in Iran

US accused of stirring up student protests in Iran

16 June 2003

Protests against the mullahs' rule spread across Iran yesterday, despite violence from pro-regime militants who smashed their way into university dormitories and attacked students. The attacks left at least one person dead in the southern city of Shiraz.

The United States, which has called for a change of government in Iran, spoke out at the weekend in support of the protesters. Iran accused America of meddling in its internal affairs and deliberately stirring up the protests.

But the students leading the protests chanted yesterday: "This is a student movement, not an American movement," according to the Iran Student News Agency.

Political change has always come from the universities in Iran. There is a great hunger for change among Iran's huge young population, tired of living under the mullahs' oppressive rule and frustrated by the reformist President Mohammad Khatami's failure to persuade the conservatives, who still hold the power, to change.

In an unexpected development yesterday, the Iranian authorities put the blame for the weekend's violence on the hardline militants who support the mullahs' rule and are believed to take their orders from senior figures inside the regime. Police began arresting dozens of militants.

There is no doubt that the protests are what America wants. The neo-conservatives around President George Bush would dearly like to see a change of government in Iran. Whether Washington is contemplating military action is not clear. But some have been talking up the possibility of fomenting change through internal dissent while keeping Iran in a stranglehold between American troops in Afghan-istan and Iraq.

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printed from US accused of stirring up student protests in Iran on 2004-05-30 23:24:49