Tehran - Iranian students staged a demonstration on Sunday
at Tehran's university against the policies of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and detainment of fellow students, ISNA news agency
reported.
Hundreds of students, mainly from the reformist DTV students'
group close to former president Mohammad Khatami, shouted slogans
against Ahmadinejad and compared him with late Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet.
ISNA said that the students also shouted 'students would rather
die than accepting suppression.'
ISNA further reported that for allowing other students to enter
the compound from outside, the demonstrators even broke the main gate
of the Tehran university.
Riot police were stationed at the site but did not intervene
although the DTV had no legal permission from the interior ministry
for holding the demonstration.
The students, who had in the past staged several similar
demonstrations against Ahmadinejad, further demanded from the
judiciary release of all jailed students.
DTV spokesman Mehdi Arabshahi said at the demonstration that
students could no longer tolerate turning the university into a
'security zone' and wondered why the government refused to grant
permission of 'even such a small gathering.'
'Would such a small gathering really jeopardize the sovereignty of
the administration?' Arabshahi asked.
'What we want is a university free of government control and the
right to also use professors with different political standpoints,'
he added, referring to use of only government-close professors in the
Iranian universities.
According to ISNA the demonstration ended after almost four hours
but the DTV students claimed that 'some persons' - reference to
intelligence agents - took video films of them at the demonstration.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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