TEHRAN: Reformist MPs had warned that banning Iranian students from exercising their legitimate demands on holding their annual demonstrations on July 9 would just lead to violence.

The interior ministry ignored the warnings and issued a total ban on the demonstrations which were called not only to commemorate the 1999 demonstrations for more press freedom but also to be a general manifestation for freedom.

Eventually thousands of students and young non-students ignored the ban and rushed into the streets near Tehran University, once again demanding a referendum on amending the political status quo and the resignation of religious leaders including President Mohammad Khatami.

The confrontation with pro-establishment Muslims was as inevitable as was the intervention by police and anti-riot forces who ended the street battles by firing into the air and using tear gas.

Hundreds of demonstrators were seen arrested and taken to nearby police stations.

The interior ministry ban also included the Western press, who were told in a culture ministry circular not to attend any illegal gatherings.

Both the state-run television and state-owned news agency IRNA, Iran’s main news sources, ignored the demonstrations, just as they had at the beginning of the unrest last month.

Even the students’ news agency ISNA, the most reliable source for students activities, remained silent. In last month’s demonstrations, the ISNA chief was beaten up. The police later apologised.

The press ban meant that many different versions of events have filtered out, with number of demonstrators variously reported to have been between hundreds to tens of thousands.

The number of detainees was also very unclear, with Western media resorting to unofficial news websites for not always reliable information.

The only official source so far reacting to the issue has been former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. At Friday prayers he termed the unrest in Tehran and other cities as regrettable.

Unemployment among young people who form more than 65 per cent of the total population was, he said, the main cause of the unrest.

He blamed the government for having failed to implement a plan made during his presidency in the 1990s to strengthen social security and unemployment aid throughout the country.

But Rafsanjani also said the reports on the size of the protests had once again been exaggerated. He again called on the United States, accused by Tehran of planning to topple the Islamic system, to stop investing on such moves.

The Iranian administration says the students themselves just want the democratisation process of the country to move forward, and accuses “US agents and hooligans” of shouting anti- establishment slogans.

While considering the unrest as serious alarm signals, parliamentary Vice-Speaker Mohammad-Reza Khatami warned that continued interference by the conservative clergy and other non- democratically elected bodies in the reform course would lead the country towards chaos.

The next parliamentary elections in March 2004 and the presidential elections in May 2005 are widely regarded as the barometer for real popular support for the administration.

Khatami, younger brother of the president, is however quite optimistic that the people will once again vote in favour of the reformists — even though earlier this year these suffered a bitter defeat in local elections.—dpa