Brutal backlash targets Iran’s students
Robert Tait and Saeed Dehghan, Tehran
The Age
June 17, 2009
HEAVY-handed police tactics with Iranian students are apparently aimed at quelling a wave of campus rebellions against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election, which authorities fear could spill over to the wider population.
A Farsi website, Balatarin, carried an unconfirmed report that seven people had been killed in the southern city of Shiraz after confrontations with riot police at the local university. It is believed that five students may also have died in clashes at Tehran University on Sunday.
The students — named as Fatemeh Barati, Kasra Sharafi, Mobina Ehterami, Kambiz Shoaee and Mohsen Imani — are believed to have been buried on Monday in Behesht-e-Zahra, a famous cemetery in Tehran, reportedly without their families being informed.
Autnews, a website run by students of Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology, claimed that plain-clothes officers used firearms against students after forcing their way on to the campus. Students were said to have sought refuge in toilets after police raided halls of residence, where rooms were ransacked and beds set on fire…
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