Iran’s Students Spearhead Drive for ‘Freedoms, Dialogue, Rule of Law’

TEHRAN — Alarmed at withering revolutionary zeal and enraged that their shah was visiting the United States, about 80 students gathered secretly on the tree-lined mountain paths that overlook Tehran in the fall of 1979 to plot a demonstration at the American Embassy. It was supposed to last three to five days.

Instead, the sit-in became a mass seizure. And by the time it was over 444 days and 52 hostages later, the world’s most famous student body had propelled the Iranian Revolution into a new phase, inspired new extremist tactics throughout the region and ignited a rivalry with a superpower that has lasted a generation.

Today, after years out of the limelight, Iran’s students are once again taking to Tehran’s streets. Once again, the goal is to correct the revolution’s course. And once again, dealings with the United States are a part of it.

This time, however, the energy is largely channeled in a different direction.

“The student movement is now trying to create a peaceful space with emphasis on dialogue and the rule of law. . . . We want to create a country with freedoms for everyone, not just one sector, and a society without harshness,” said Ali Reza Taheri, one of six leaders of the influential Office for Islamic Unity, this country’s largest and most significant student group.

“We want to correct the mistakes of the past, not repeat them,” he added.

More than any other sector of society, Iran’s students are now redefining the revolution.

Mohammad Khatami, the new reformist president, may be the symbol of change to the outside world. But at home he is merely the byproduct of a political phenomenon spearheaded by Iran’s youth, who today account for about 65% of Iran’s 63 million people.

Iran’s young, who begin voting at age 15, were the biggest factor in Khatami’s election victory last year. And their demonstrations--or mere plans for public rallies--have become the front line of Iran’s political battlefield between reformers and conservatives.

The Office for Islamic Unity recently invited former Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri to give a speech at Tehran University that turned into a raucous rally--and potentially a political turning point.

Nouri, a leading reformer who was impeached last month by the conservative-dominated parliament, told a cheering throng of students that the campaign to force him out of power had exposed the conservatives’ goal of undoing the new government by blocking reform.

“After the vote of no confidence, everything has become clear about the position of the majority of deputies against the government and Khatami,” he said to roaring chants of support.

Nouri’s authorization of several earlier student rallies was one reason that 31 members of parliament called for his impeachment. But in a defiant twist, within an hour of the no-confidence vote, Khatami appointed Nouri vice president for political development and social affairs--code words in Iran for reform.

The student protests have picked up steam, drawing dramatic responses and framing the country’s political debate:

* On March 2, about 3,000 students rallied at Tehran University’s leafy downtown campus to challenge the right of the Council of Guardians, a religious oversight committee, to vet political candidates’ qualifications on moral and ideological grounds. The process eliminated several pro-Khatami candidates for March 13 parliament by-elections--as well as thousands of candidates in national and presidential polls over the past decade.

Demonstrators charged conservative “monopolists” with trying to “appoint people to parliament” rather than letting them be freely elected. In rhythmic unison, they repeatedly shouted, “Hail freedom!”

Religious thugs with Ansar-e Hezbollah, or Helpers of the Party of God, attacked the crowd. Riot police eventually broke up the clashes, which left dozens injured.

* The Office for Islamic Unity planned a major protest April 14 against the arrest of Tehran’s reformist mayor, Gholam-Hossein Karbaschi, who was also the president’s campaign manager.

“We don’t support Karbaschi because he is the mayor. Before being a mayor he is a citizen, and we object to the violation of a citizen’s rights,” said Maysam Saeedi, one of the group’s leaders.

In part to prevent the rally and its potential consequences, a behind-the-scenes deal was struck to release Karbaschi from prison until his trial.

Despite the last-minute cancellation, hundreds of students still turned out. Again, Ansar militants attacked. Again, clashes ensued.

* Chanting and waving pictures of the turbaned president, tens of thousands of students turned out at Tehran University on May 23 to mark the first anniversary of Khatami’s election. It also became a forum for condemning conservatives and demanding further reforms. One group of demonstrators shouted for the resignation of Iran’s chief Supreme Court justice, who had ordered the Tehran mayor’s arrest.

* Two days later, 2,000 turned out at a rally sponsored by the Union of Islamic Students and Graduates to demand that women and non-clerics be allowed to run this fall for the powerful Assembly of Experts, the group of 83 clergy members who select and can dismiss Iran’s supreme religious leader.

“The purpose of our revolution was to allow us to breathe in a free atmosphere,” Union leader Heshmatollah Tabarzadi told the crowd in Tulip Park.

Ansar thugs responded by pelting the platform with rocks and beating students. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

“Students are the engine of change in Iran,” Tehran University political scientist Nasser Hadian said. “Their sheer numbers give them more weight than in other societies.”

Student power has now put conservatives on the defensive. Parliament, which is dominated by conservatives, recently took up legislation raising the voting age to 18. Khatami’s victory has ignited fear that they will be the next to go in elections in 2000.

Three days after the Khatami anniversary rally, conservative clerics in the religious center of Qom organized their own rally to protest the behavior of pro-democracy students.

State television, run by the brother of a noted conservative politician, now calls for “tranquillity” and “composure” whenever word of another student rally spreads. Recent graffiti on Vali-Asr Avenue, the main boulevard running from Tehran’s northern mountains to the southern desert, charges students with “fomenting turmoil.”

The student political spectrum covers groups of all sizes and with varying agendas.

Headquartered in a rundown house off a Tehran back street, the Office for Islamic Unity draws together members from all of Iran’s colleges, universities and technical institutes.

It is also the reconfigured descendant of the Students of the Imam’s Line, the group that seized the U.S. Embassy. But times are distinctly different now, students say.

“We still have the goals of the revolution. But today we don’t need to have such revolutionary behavior,” said Taheri, who is studying engineering. “Our decisions and actions are based on the situation of the time, and today we are looking for peace and security, worldwide democracy and real human rights for all people.”

While still reverential, students also view the religious leadership somewhat differently.

“We even had a meeting with Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei, and we told him when something is not a religious issue, we can interpret or apply our own ideas,” said Ali Tavakoli, a soft-spoken economics student. “On many issues we have independence to do what we believe is right.”

Many students also back Khatami’s overtures to the American people--and the possibility of eventual U.S.-Iran relations. But would Americans again face the danger of an embassy seizure?

Because the emphasis today is on the rule of law, the students pledge to “defend the security of all Iranian and non-Iranians,” Taheri said adamantly.

The shift, say their instructors, is genuine.

“They have gone through a transformation from the guys who took over the embassy,” said Hadi Semati, a U.S.-educated analyst at Tehran’s Research Institute for Mideast Studies. “The primary concerns are not foreign policy or anti-Western positions. Political freedom at home is the No. 1 issue.”

Tabarzadi, something of a perpetual student as he enters middle age, personifies the transformation.

The leader of the Union of Islamic Students and Graduates was a student protester against the monarchy in 1979. But since then, he said, Iran has suffered “religious totalitarianism.”

He also contended that Iran’s new president may not be the answer to the quest for greater freedoms.

“Khatami is a positive man, but his actions are not strong enough. What we need is rule of law that does not mean the rule of clerics,” he said, slowly flicking a chain of yellow worry beads.

Last winter, after Tabarzadi brazenly called for the abolition of Iran’s supreme leader, Ansar broke into his office and destroyed computers, furniture and equipment.

Tabarzadi still bears facial scars from a prolonged beating, and he keeps a bloodied shirt in his office as a souvenir. He has also been detained three times and repeatedly prosecuted.