In a message addressed to the Iranian nation, and particularly to university students and teaching staff, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect Maryam Rajavi offered her sympathies to the victims of the brutal attack on students' hostels in Tehran University. She offered her condolences to the bereaved families of the slain students and praised the courage of the freedom-loving students who defied the "bloodthirsty religious dictatorship ruling Iran."

Mrs. Rajavi said: By ordering this savage assault on students' demonstration, the criminal mullahs ruling Iran... must realize that the Iranian people and Resistance will never forget the cruel atrocities committed by the regime's agents on Tehran University hostels' Bloody Friday, which will go down in history alongside the other horrors of the mullahs' rule. But the ruling mullahs would do well to remember the Shah's experience: suppression of the people and beating and murder of students will not save their regime from its inevitable fate of being overthrown.

Mrs. Rajavi called on all students, academics and teachers in Iran to hold remembrance services for victims of Bloody Friday and not allow Khamenei and Khatami to evade their responsibility in this atrocity and whitewash their bloody crime against students.

In a separate massage, the NCR President Massoud Rajavi extended his condolences to the families of the courageous students who were slain or wounded during the criminal raid by the regime's suppressive forces. Mr. Rajavi hailed the growing resistance put up by Iranian students.

The Iranian Resistance leader said the regime's anti-riot forces' assault on the students again unveiled the savage nature the mullahs' regime and showed that it was devoid of any potential for reform. Mr. Rajavi called on all students across the nation to rise up and protest against the crimes of the mullahs' regime in Tehran University's students hostels.
 
 

Students Plan Fresh Protests Despite Stern Warning from Council Headed by Khatami, Reuters, July 12

TEHRAN - Pro-democracy students in Iran planned fresh protests on Monday against a bloody crackdown on colleagues in the face of stern warnings from the country's top security body about unauthorized demonstrations.

"Any unauthorized assembly is deemed illegal and violators will be dealt with according to regulations," the Supreme National Security Council said in a statement.

Students had earlier vowed to continue their protests, which have grown in size and the radical tone of its slogans since they began on Thursday with a small peaceful rally supporting press freedom.

Students have stepped up demands for the resignation of senior officials in a crisis that has shaken the Islamic republic and put pressure on Khatami.

Thousands of students, many wearing scarves on their faces to hide their identities, earlier marched in Tehran streets, confronting police which often retreated.

Several people were injured during clashes at a sympathy demonstration by students in the northwestern city of Tabriz on Sunday. The protest was one of several held in major cities, including Mashhad, Isfahan and Shiraz.

[According to Iran Zamin News Agency, Revolutionary Guards and State Security Forces attacked a protest demonstration in Tabriz, killing one student, injuring scores of protesters and arresting more than 100 others. The murdered student was identified as Mr. Kaveh Mohammadi, a development undergraduate in the University of Tabriz.]

The security council, in its statement, stressed the need to maintain order, and blasted "abuses by opportunistic elements," an apparent reference to students who chanted slogans against top political and religious leaders during the protests.

The cabinet of Khatami called for calm and order late on Sunday, urging students to "set an example by respecting law and order."

The president's call for calm came as protest slogans voiced by the students became more radical.

"Either Islam and the law, or another revolution," the marchers chanted, referring to Iran's 1979 revolution.

"We are not going to be satisfied until people at the top resign," said one student leader. "Khatami has to do something or resign."

Even Ayatollah Khamenei, usually above public reproach, was criticized by the students for failing to protect them.

Student groups have said several students were killed during the protests over the past four days

In the Tehran protest, columns of students chased away three traffic police cars that tried to block their march. A police minibus was surrounded by students but managed to escape.

"I am going to kill my brothers' murderers," chanted students, many wearing scarves over their faces to hide their identities.

Drivers honked their horns in support of the students, while residents offered them iced water to counter sweltering heat.

Some of the protesters demanded the execution of national police chief Brigadier General Hedayat Lotfian, who reports to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A leading student group said the attacks on students by police and vigilantes of the Ansar-e Hezbollah group could not have been made without high-level support.

"Ansar commits crimes, and the leader supports them," shouted some demonstrators, before fellow students urged them to be quiet. "Oh, great leader, shame on you."

The official IRNA news agency said the university in Mashhad, Iran's second largest city, had closed for two days in protest at the crackdown in Tehran, while students in Isfahan held a sit-in and hung black mourning banners at three campuses.

The students, who have consistently maintained that some of their classmates were killed, also declared Sunday a day of mourning. Under Shi'ite Moslem tradition, mourning ceremonies are held on the third, seventh and 40th day after death.
 
 

Iranians Want Dictators Out, Associated Press, July 10

DUBAI -- One day after a violent police raid on a Tehran University dormitory, thousands of demonstrators protested Saturday outside the school, demanding the resignation of powerful hard-liners in the Islamic government.

The protest and others that erupted Saturday around Iran were sharply reminiscent of scenes from the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970s that forced out the U.S.-backed shah and brought Islamic rulers to power. This time, however, the demonstrators were demanding democracy.

"Death to despotism! Death to dictators!" protesters chanted in Tehran, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity by telephone.

By late Saturday, 25,000 people had gathered -- including students from other universities and ordinary Iranians. Their shouts of "students unite" reverberated in the night.

And in a demand that would at any other time have resulted in severe punishment, protesters shouted: "Khamenei must quit," referring to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, witnesses said.

Most protesters were students, but there were many others, including women and children, the witnesses said.

The rally blocked off large parts of Enqelab -- the Persian word for Revolution -- Avenue, said witnesses and journalists.

It was on that same street where the demonstrations began that snowballed into the Islamic Revolution in the 1970s, eventually toppling the shah in 1979 and bringing the Islamic government to power.

"This was exactly like the revolution," said one man at the rally where several supporters of hard-liners were badly beaten.

Iranian television limited its coverage to a few shots of damaged windows at one university dorm.
 
 

Solidarity Rallies in U.S. in Support of Student Protests, Associated Press, July 11

DUBAI - … Protests also had spread Sunday to major cities around the country, such as Shiraz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Hamedan and Tabriz, where several people were injured in clashes between moderate and hard-line students, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Protests even developed in the United States in support of the Iranian students. About 100 chanting protesters gathered in Los Angeles to support the Iranian students. In Houston, some about 25 Iranians demonstrated on a street corner, while a similar roadside protest was held in Dallas.
 
 

Khatami's Collusion With Khamenei to Cover Up Dimensions of Mullahs' Criminal Attack, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 11

In a second statement issued by the Supreme National Security Council under his chairmanship, mullahs' President Mohammad Khatami revealed that his only aim is to pacify the protesting students, make political capital to his own advantage out of the students' demonstrations, and at the same time cover up the real dimensions of the criminal assault by Revolutionary Guards and repressive forces of the regime on Tehran University's students' hostels.

The SNSC stated that "the only person killed in the attack was conscript officer Ezzat Ebrahimnejad. "This bold-faced lie contradicts reliable information that at least six students died in Thursday night's attacks and passed away afterwards in hospital.

The SNSC statement also claimed that the students opened fire on the Revolutionary Guards and State Security Forces with firearms and wounded an SSF officer. This scenario designed to explain away the repressive forces' recourse to brutal tactics is another indication of how far Khatami is prepared to go in collusion with Khamenei to whitewash this ugly crime and savage attack on innocent students.

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