Dozens of Tehran University professors appealed to Iran's
supreme leader to halt the ongoing violence against opposition
protesters, a pro-reform Web site reported Monday.
The letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei _ signed by 88 professors _
was the latest daring challenge to the Iran's clerical
leadership.
The letter, posted on the Greenroad Web site, called the attacks
a sign of weakness in the ruling system and demanded punishment for
those who beat up students. It also urged Khamenei to order arrests
over the hard-line crackdown, which intensified after protesters
began chanting slogans against the supreme leader.
At least eight people died in clashes between security forces
and opposition supporters across Iran late last month, including a
nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
It was the worst bloodshed since the height of the unrest
immediately after disputed June presidential election.
"Nighttime attacks on defenseless student dormitories and
daytime assaults on students at university campuses, venues of
education and learning, is not a sign of strength. ... Nor is
beating up students and their mass imprisonment," the letter
read.
The letter referred to attacks by pro-government paramilitary
Basij forces on pro-opposition students inside Tehran University
campus last month. The attacks were launched after students took to
the streets on Dec. 7 on more than a dozen campuses in the biggest
anti-government protests in months.
The professors said none of the attackers, who chanted slogans
in support of Khamenei while beating students, have been punished.
They demanded Khamenei also order that all students arrested in the
protests be released.
"Unfortunately, all these (attacks) were carried out under the
pretext of protecting Islam" and the position of the supreme
leader, the professors also said.
Iranian students were the driving force of the 1979 Islamic
Revolution and they led anti-government protests last month that
revitalized the opposition movement, even as opposition leaders
struggle to dent the power of the ruling establishment.
Tehran University is the country's largest, with 1,480
professors and teachers, according to its Web site.
A fierce government crackdown had all but crushed mass street
protests that erupted immediately after June's presidential
elections, which the opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
won by fraud. But the protests regained momentum in December and
large turnouts at rallies showed months of arrests and intimidation
have failed to stamp out the movement.
The government has accused the West of fomenting Iran's
post-election turmoil. Intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi said
Monday some of those arrested in protests Dec. 27, when Shiite
Muslims in Iran marked the sacred day of Ashoura, were foreign
citizens.
"Some of the detainees ... were foreign nationals who were
leading a propaganda and a psychological war," said Moslehi,
according to state TV. He said the foreigners came to Iran just two
days before the Ashoura but did not specify their
nationalities.
Moslehi said cameras and equipment belonging to the foreigners
was also confiscated.
Iran has been conducting mass trials of opposition figures and
activists arrested in the post-election protests. Five defendants
have been sentenced to death and 81 had received prison terms
ranging from six months up to 15 years.
Authorities said more than 500 protesters following were
arrested after the Ashoura protests and that they would be put on
trial.
General prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei said Monday
those trials would be speedy and that some of the detainees could
also face the death penalty over rioting against the ruling
clerical establishment.