Iranian student protests in July 1999

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The Iranian student protests in July 1999 lasted from July 7th to July 13th, 1999. Because of the bloody crackdown, the protests were called the Kuye Daneschgah disaster ( Persian فاجعه کوی دانشگاه) known. The protests spread across the country and led to the most violent clashes with security forces in the Islamic Republic of Iran since the Islamic Revolution. What made the protests so remarkable was the fact that the demonstrators had all grown up under the Islamic Republic. While the government has always blamed conservative supporters of the old Shah regime for activities critical of the government, this time it was young people who had only seen the Islamic Republic as a form of government since their birth and who called for a change in the prevailing conditions.

Chronology of events

The protests and demonstrations began on the eve of July 9, 1999 or, according to the Iranian calendar, the 18th Tir 1378. The trigger was the closure of the newspaper Salam ( Persian روزنامه سلام) by court order. The newspaper belonged to the reformist party of Mohammad Chātami , the association of fighting clergy . The students, who were considered to be one of the main pillars of President Chātami at the time, protested the closure of the newspaper.

On the evening of the protests, around 400 security guards in civilian clothes broke into student dormitories, kicked doors, attacked residents and threw incendiary devices into the rooms. Some students were thrown from balconies on the third floor, causing severe bone fractures for most. According to the students, the regular police observed what was happening without intervening. Witnesses reported that at least one student died and approximately 300 students were injured.

The following day, riots began in Tehran and other major cities in Iran and lasted for about a week. Many young people support the students, so that the number of demonstrators increased from an initial few hundred to many thousands. According to eyewitnesses, Basitschi walked the streets with T-shirts, threw bricks in shop windows and rioted in the city centers in order to provide the security forces with an excuse to oppose the initially peaceful demonstration by students. During the next five days there was real street fighting between students and security forces in Tehran. Such violent clashes had not occurred in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the past twenty years.

Many students were arrested. The only dead person confirmed by the security forces was Ezzat Ebrahim Mejad, who died of a gunshot wound. Several student associations put the number of deaths at 17. The street battles that had started in Tehran soon spread to Tabris , Mashhad , Shiraz and Isfahan . In Tabris too, security forces penetrated the university campus and attacked students, killing four students. On July 13, 1999, there was a momentous storm on the Ministry of the Interior in Tehran. President Chātami then banned further protests, stating that further demonstrations would be viewed as "directed against the foundations of the Islamic Republic".

The following day, July 14, 1999, tens of thousands of demonstrators came to demonstrate for the Supreme Legal Scholar Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Republic. Many government officials who had been bus driven to Tehran from all over the country participated in the demonstrations.

Further developments

After the demonstrations were crushed, Chātami's reform projects were blocked by the Guardian Council . A long-negotiated agreement that would have restricted the Council of Guardians' rights to select candidates for parliamentary elections was halted by the Supreme Leader's veto . A new law restricting freedom of assembly has been passed, which can immediately punish any violent or peaceful protest against the government. Another law criminalized the disclosure of information to embassies, foreign organizations, political parties or the media that impair Iranian independence or security or that is directed against the interests of the Islamic Republic.

In parallel to the tightening of the law, there was a wave of arrests in the following weeks. In addition to 70 students, 1,200 and 1,400 people from around the demonstrators were arrested. According to Human Rights Watch, the whereabouts of five students are still unknown today.

As far as is known, not all of those arrested at the time have been released. One of the arrested students, Akbar Mohammadi, died while on a hunger strike against his detention conditions. Another student arrested at the time, Ahmad Batebi , escaped in 2006 from a hospital to which he had been transferred after a hunger strike. He lives in the USA today. Batebi was best known for a photo that appeared on the front page of The Economist on July 17, 1999 , showing him holding up a blood-stained T-shirt of a protester previously beaten by security forces as a symbol of protest.

On July 8, 2009, as part of the protests against the results of the Iranian presidential elections in 2009, there were again demonstrations in memory of the student protests of 1999.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Six days that shook Iran BBC News July 11, 2000
  2. ↑ Shirin Ebadi: Iran Awakening, Random House New York, 2006, p. 149
  3. ↑ Shirin Ebadi: Iran Awakening, (2006), p. 149
  4. ↑ Afshin Molavi: The Soul of Iran, Norton, 2005, p 202
  5. ↑ Shirin Ebadi: Iran Awakening, 2006, p. 149.
  6. ↑ Molavi: The Soul of Iran, 2005, p 203rd
  7. ↑ The Economist July 17, 1999.
  8. ↑ AFP: July 13, 1999
  9. ↑ JIRA, Nov. 1999, p. 22.
  10. ^ Robin Wright: The Last Great Revolution, 2000, pp. 268-272.
  11. ^ New Arrests And "Disappearances" Of Iranian Students
  12. ↑ http://www.flickr.com/photos/64235932@N00/24688984/  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Ahmad Batebi in Tehran July 12, 1999@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.flickr.com  

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