June 29, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 28,1424

TEHRAN, June 28: Four Iranian reformist MPs began a 48-hour sit-in in parliament on Saturday to protest a wave of arrests of students that followed 10 days of anti-government protests and unrest.

“We object to the way in which these students were arrested. We are uncertain over their whereabouts and over which authority arrested them,” said a Tehran MP and former student activist, Fatemeh Haqiqatjou.

“We are not supporting civil unrest, but what we are advocating is for everything to fall within the legal framework,” another of the four MPs, Meysam Saeedi, said at a press conference.

A third MP, Reza Yousefian, also said the group were “not ruling out resigning, but for the time being we are discussing the matter with our friends in parliament”.

According to the prosecutor general, Iranian security forces made 4,000 arrests during the June 10-20 unrest, with half of that number still being held. However, officials have asserted that only a minority of those detained were students.

The protests began after a small student rally against the privatization of some university facilities snowballed into anti-government protests around Tehran university, sparking severe clashes between protestors and vigilantes.—AFP