Basij forces hunting down student protestors

Iran Press News: The Amir Kabir Newsletter reports: Iranian students who in demonstrations last week showed their wrath against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now in fear of retributions from his supporters, have gone into hiding. The student who held up the sign “Fascist president, you don’t belong at the polytechnic” was photographed and at least 3 of the other students who burned Ahmadinejad’s photo and held it upside down, are all in hiding. Basiji forces and Ansar’eh Hezbollah are now hunting them down.

Last week as Ahmadinejad was being booed and jeered inside the auditorium of Amir Kabir polytechnic university, there were severe clashes between student activists and Basijis, outside, on the university campus. A shoe was hurled at Ahmadinejad by a student whose nose was then broken by Ahmadinejad’s bodyguard.

As Ahmadinejad got in his car to leave, his car was surrounded by protestors. His companions later said that he had been calm and had said that the protestors should be left alone, however, some of the people who were in the audience at the auditorium said that he did in fact call the students agents of the US and should in fact be dealt with by force.

Babak Zamanian, spokesman for the Amir Kabir University student assembly, said: “He directly threatened us and said that our actions are opposed to the nation. It was after these comments that the reaction of the students became more intense and the protesting students called him a religious zealot dictator and liar; it was then when the students began shouting, in unison (which rhymes in Persian): ‘forget about America, give us a little though’. When we were chanting, booing and jeering at him, calling him “to get lost” and that “he’s an agent of discrimination and corruption” you could tell from his face that he was really stunned. He was trying to encourage his supporters to sing some religious song but he was so daunted that he could only sing it himself."

Another student said: “He was trying to control himself but it was quite clear that he was angry and distressed."

Witnesses say that Ahmadinejad tried to mock the students and said that according to new regulations of censuring students by giving them stars, which essentially deprives of them of further education, they will be turned into peons. According to Babak Zamanian this comment made students even more irrate. While some chanted slogans, another group, despite previous recommendations, without covering their faces, held up signs and set fire to Ahmadinejad’s photos.

Similar to Ahmad Batebi who was hunted down by the ministry of intelligence and security after his photo was published on the cover of the British magazine, the Economist, during the July 1999 Tehran university student uprisings, in last week’s protest, the 21-year-old student who was holding the sign “Fascist president”, is also now in danger; this student whose photo was published by foreign media without his face being blurred out, is now in grave danger especially that later after the situation in the audotorium he had an altercation with 2 of Ahmadinejad’s bodyguards. A basiji student supporter of Ahmadinejad said: "We are going to skin him alive. He’s dangerous. The [Basiji] attendants are now hunting him down in the dorms.”

26-year-old, Armin Salmasi, believes: "Pressure on universities will increase and will become more and more intense. We are constantly under surveillance. The Iranian student movement will go underground, just as it was right around the time of the Revolution.”
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The Basiji forces are mobilization forces created by Khomeini; they are extremely radical and are now supported by the Fuehrer Mullah Ali Khamenei