TEHRAN, Nov 24: Iranian hardliners kicked off a week of street rallies on Sunday, as pro-reform students were told to put an end to two weeks of tense demonstrations amid warnings of a fierce conservative backlash.

As some 10,000 members of the hardline Basij militia chanted “Death to America” outside the former US embassy here, rival rallies planned by university students were called off after permission was withheld.

And a leading member of the main reformist party backing President Mohammad Khatami warned students that their continued protests — originally sparked by the sentencing to death for blasphemy of pro-reform academic Hashem Aghajari — could result in hardliners declaring a state of emergency.

“The students must be very vigilant in order to avoid a violent reaction from hardliners,” Said Hajarian, a leader of the Islamic Iran Particpation Front (IIPF), told a press conference.

“They should organize gatherings and round tables, and avoid going out onto the streets, because certain people are ready to declare the country to be in a state of emergency.”

The warning was also echoed by the IIPF’s leader and brother of President Mohammad Khatami.

“When the pressure becomes too strong for the reform movement, it is normal that students and the youth look for other solutions,” Mohammad Reza Khatami said.

Since Nov 9, students have been demonstrating on a near-daily basis over the Aghajari verdict.

On Sunday, student leaders said they had called off protest gatherings at Tehran’s Amir Kabir polytechnic and Elm-o-Sanat University, after authorities refused to grant permission for the rallies.

A government source said that because the case of Aghajari was now subject to a review following the intervention of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, students should end their protest actions that have spread across the country and have sparked sporadic clashes.

“Creating an atmosphere of tension is not favourable, because things are being done to review the Aghajari verdict through legal channels,” said the source.

Iran’s reigning conservative Khamenei denounced the wave of student protests on Friday and called for political unity.

However, it was not immediately clear if all protest actions were subject to a blanket ban, even though one student leader suggested that such a ban had been imposed.

On the other side of Iran’s political divide, the Basij militia were out in force outside the former US embassy as part of a series of events marking national Basij week.

“Islam is victorious, the East and the West are defeated,” shouted the crowd of some 10,000 armed and uniformed activists, including 2,000 women clad in black chadors.

The embassy was overrun by radical students on Nov 4, 1979, just months after the ouster of Iran’s US-backed Shah. Its 52 staff were held hostage for 444 days, in a crisis that led to the suspension of US-Iranian ties.

Now dubbed the “den of spies” and serving as a Revolutionary Guards base, the walls of the former embassy are covered with an array of colourful revolutionary artwork denouncing the “Great Satan”.—AFP