HRANA – Despite exams and increased security measures intended to intimidate students, the “green students” of Tehran University were successful in organizing a protest that drew hundreds of students on Monday June 14, 2010.
According to the students, about 100 students began protesting in front of the main door for the university’s technical school and their numbers grew quickly. Filming by plain clothed agents prevented the on looking crowd (which had grown larger than the main crowd of protestors) from joining the protest. Instead that crowd began to march on university grounds.

The students were shouting the familiar slogan of Allah o Akbar which has become a symbol of dissent against the government. Student basij members from different universities, who were gathered in the schools mosque under the pretext of a religious ceremony, under direction of a man named Nasiri from the office of the supreme leader began to shout slogans in support of Ahamadinejad in the area of a memorial to the students who were martyred last year.

The protesting students called on their fellow students to join them and within thirty minutes the crowd had swelled to 300 “green students” as they began to march to the opposite end of the university. In a commendable act, university security prevented a group of basji members from attacking the protesting students. The basij from the universities of Tehran, Sharif, and Amir Kabir under the direction of Nasiri (from the office of the supreme leader) quickly moved to head off the protesting students. With flags and pictures of the supreme leader in hand, they began to threaten and assault the protesting students. As a result the number of protesting students grew and soon the students surrounded the basij as chants of “Death to Dictator” echoed throughout the campus.

The protesting “green students” chanting “Death to Dictator” returned to their original location as a result of the threats of violence against them.

Other news from today’s protest:

There were a large number of plain clothed agents in and around the university today. These agents were filming students at close range.

A number of the plain clothed agents began to demand that school officials confiscate the student ID cards of those students they recognized after the protest had ended. In another incident, two plain clothed agents entered the cafeteria of the university’s law school at 5pm and pointed out two female students. They demanded school officials confiscate the girls ID’s. This led to clashes with the students in the cafeteria. The students were able to help the two female students flee the scene.

Efforts to locate students involved in the protests were aided by members of the basij.

There are reports that state security forces had set up a perimeter that included buses in front of the main entrance to the university so that the clashes inside of the school would not be seen by the people outside of the university. At 5pm there was not a heavy presence of security or buses outside of the school.

The number of basij brought together was estimated to be around 200. Despite the secret planning and exams the number of protesting “green students” was many times that amount. 

School officials prevented anyone from entering the university today without a Tehran University ID, although this did not hold true for the basij.