Iran university professors denounce crackdown on opposition in letter to supreme leader

Iran university professors denounce crackdown

TEHRAN, Iran — Dozens of Tehran University professors appealed Monday to Iran’s supreme leader to halt the ongoing violence against protesters, adding a new and respected voice in support of the opposition.

The government, meanwhile, stepped up its accusations that the West is fomenting Tehran’s post-election turmoil, saying that foreign nationals were among those arrested in the most recent clashes between security forces and pro-opposition protesters.

Officials didn’t provide the nationalities of the arrested but accused the foreigners of leading a propaganda war and warned they face possible death sentences for seeking to topple the government.

The letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — signed by 88 professors and reported by a pro-reform Web site — reflected a daring challenge to the Iran’s clerical leadership since it is sure to further arouse the anger of authorities.

Tehran University is the country’s largest, with 1,480 professors and teachers, according to its Web site. By speaking openly in support of the protesters, the professors are putting their careers on the line.

Iranian students were the driving force of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and they led anti-government protests last month that revitalized the opposition movement, even as opposition leaders struggle to dent the power of the ruling establishment.

The letter, posted on the pro-reform Greenroad Web site, called the attacks a sign of weakness in the ruling system and demanded punishment for those who beat up students. It also urged Khamenei to order arrests over the hard-line crackdown, which intensified after protesters began chanting slogans against the supreme leader.

At least eight people died in clashes between security forces and opposition supporters across Iran late last month, including a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

It was the worst bloodshed since the height of the unrest immediately after disputed June presidential election.

“Nighttime attacks on defenseless student dormitories and daytime assaults on students at university campuses, venues of education and learning, is not a sign of strength. … Nor is beating up students and their mass imprisonment,” the letter read.

It referred to attacks by pro-government paramilitary Basij forces on pro-opposition students inside Tehran University campus last month. The attacks were launched after students took to the streets on Dec. 7 on more than a dozen campuses in the biggest anti-government protests in months.

The professors said none of the attackers, who chanted slogans in support of Khamenei while beating students, have been punished. They demanded Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, also order that all students arrested in the protests be released.

“Unfortunately, all these (attacks) were carried out under the pretext of protecting Islam” and the position of the supreme leader, the professors also said.

A fierce government crackdown had all but crushed mass street protests that erupted immediately after June’s presidential elections, which the opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by fraud. But the protests regained momentum in December and large turnouts at rallies showed months of arrests and intimidation have failed to stamp out the movement.

Intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi said some of those arrested in protests Dec. 27, when Shiite Muslims in Iran marked the sacred day of Ashoura, were foreign citizens who had come to Iran just two days before the day of the protests.

“Some of the detainees … were foreign nationals who were leading a propaganda and a psychological war,” said Moslehi, according to state TV. He said cameras and equipment belonging to the foreigners was also confiscated.

Iran has been conducting mass trials of opposition figures and activists arrested in the post-election protests. Five defendants have been sentenced to death and 81 received prison terms ranging from six months up to 15 years.

Authorities said more than 500 demonstrators were arrested after the Ashoura protests and that they would be put on trial.

General prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi said Monday those trials would be speedy and that some of the detainees could also face the death penalty over rioting against the ruling establishment.