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Iranian Students Protest Ahmadinejad
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 9, 2007
In a rare show of dissent, Iranian students at the University of Tehran gathered outside school gates, demonstrating against the government as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke there yesterday, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
The BBC reported on eyewitnesses who said police used tear gas to suppress demonstrators. After Ahmadinejad’s appearance at Columbia, Iranian student leaders challenged him over the academic freedoms from which American students benefit.
They got their wish as the president spoke in the country’s capital. Unlike the engagement in Morningside Heights, at the event in Tehran the campus was locked and journalists were prohibited from entering campus.
This protest comes as information has spread about omissions of Ahmadinejad’s speech during its broadcast in Iran. Many of Ahmadinejad’s criticisms of people willing to negotiate on nuclear issues were omitted, as they were seen as critical of previous Iranian President Hashimi Rafsanjani.
According to the BBC, the two opposing groups were composed of about a few hundred students each. The anti-government group chanted, “Death to the dictator.” When protesters tried to break into the hall where Ahmadinejad was speaking, law-enforcement officials used tear gas to quell the crowd.
Yesterday’s demonstration was one of the first anti-government protests since December 2006, when Ahmadinejad was met with student dissent when he spoke at Amir Kabir Technical University. Outside the Amir Kabir engagement, students set the president’s picture on fire.
These protests echo the fear expressed by Tehran native and CUNY architecture student, Mahdi Hosseinzadeh, who stood outside Columbia’s gates on Sept. 24, holding pictures of his two imprisoned friends. “They [my friends] are imprisoned for being part of an Iranian student movement. When Ahmadinejad took them, first they put them in jail for no reason—then they come up with political reasons.”
Hosseinzadeh added that Ahmadinejad was his professor in the Iran University of Science and Technology. “He was a good teacher,” he said, “not a good person.”
Joy Resmovits can be reached at joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com.
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To Anonymous
So Iranian Students -Ahamd Ghasaban, Majid Tavakoli, Ehsan Mansoori- have been in prison for more than 6 month on what pretext? You are a good lier man.
Journalists prohibited, students gassed. "Will not be persecuted or prosecuted." Get a grip on freakin' reality! And a brain scan.
None of the students that burned his picture and chanted death to his face were prosecuted, in the last year question and answer meeting. And none of the students who tried to break into the hall that he was attending the inauguration, yesterday are going to be prosecuted. They are certainly going to be given warnings by the university regarding their conduct, but they are not going to be persecuted.
To Anonymous
So Iranian Students -Ahamd Ghasaban, Majid Tavakoli, Ehsan Mansoori- have been in prison for more than 6 month on what pretext? You are a good lier man.
To Anonymous
So Iranian Students -Ahamd Ghasaban, Majid Tavakoli, Ehsan Mansoori- have been in prison for more than 6 month on what pretext? You are a good lier man.
President Ahmadinejad has publicly and repeatedly criticized the policy of the previous government on the nuclear issues, in Iran and during official broadcasts and interviews and rallies. There was nothing in the Columbia university speech that contradicted or added to his previous and openly stated and known stance regarding the policy of the previous government. He has repeatedly said that stopping the enrichment and research program for two years not only did not achieve anything but boldened the enemies of Iran and caused them to believe that they can tear up their previous agreements with Iran and their recognition of the Iranian rights under the NPT and come up with new demands after two years of suspension. On the other hand the full text of President Ahmadinejad's speech is widely and officially available. Unfortunately this report and other like it hint at censorship, which is just ridiculous, or at least it is in this case.
As for the student protests in Iran, they were only stopped after they tried to break in the hall that President Ahmadinejad was speaking. Nowhere in the world an angry mob is allowed to break up a meeting or a conference where the President and half of his cabinet are attending. In the case this meeting, invitation cards were issued for student and faculty of the university, and the meeting was a celebration of the commencement of the new academic year in Iran.
Last year, in a question and answer session with the students of the same university, some students chanted the same slogans and put fire to posters of Mr. Ahmadinejad while he was answering questions by students. He asked for calm and continued and the same students started chanting 'death to dictator' again and again put fire to posters in the hall that Ahmadinejad was speaking. He witnessed all this and only asked them to give their reasons to why they think he is a dictator. They were not interested and kept shouting and starting new fires in the building. They were finally evicted by force from the building by the security and other students.
So, overall, none of those students can say now that they are not free to speak their mind. But if they think that the limit of their freedom includes destroying public property and disrupting any meeting that they choose, perhaps they should start learning that those who ask them to behave in such manner, do not have their best interest in mind.
These Iranian students protesting against the murderous dictator Ahmadinejad are very brave. They could be put in prison indefinitely. They could be rounded up and killed by Ahmadinejad's henchmen.
And students at Columbia applauded this evil man. For shame, you PC MoonBats.
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