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Iran Islamic Groups Clash With Students in Tehran
TEHRAN, July 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Members of Iran's conservative Islamic Basij group and students commemorating the July 8, 1999 police attack on a university dormitory clashed Monday in front of Tehran University, in the center of the capital, news agencies said.
"Several Basiji attacked a group of students on the side-walk of Enqelab (Revolution) Avenue, not far from the main entrance of the university," the reporter said.
Police intervened immediately and proceeded to arrest some of the students, but there were no immediate reports of any injuries.
Efforts by plain-clothes police were still under way to disperse the crowds, while shops, mainly booksellers, in the area of the university campus had closed.
Some 20 students, including six women, had already been arrested outside the university where students were planning to gather and mark the second anniversary of the 1999 police attack against Tehran dormitory students protesting the closure of a pro-reform daily.
What pro-reform students had planned to be the "National Day Against Violence," was instead marked by the presence of dozens of anti-riot forces and buses readying to crackdown on the student gathering.
Dozens of Basij group forces, including former soldiers of the "holy" 1980-1988 war against Iraq, occupied the streets around Tehran university in the center of the capital, denouncing the scheduled commemoration ceremony.
Earlier this week, the interior ministry announced that students had not been given an authorization to mark the two-year anniversary of the Tehran dorm attack, adding that "any rally would be illegal."
But the conservative Jomhuri-Eslami newspaper on Sunday, citing a statement from Tehran's security council, said "organizing ceremonies to mark the anniversary" would be authorized, but only "within university compounds."
The police raid on the dorm in 1999 came as students protested the closure of the popular reformist Salam daily.
The incident sparked days of violent rioting in Tehran and the provinces - one of the worst cases of unrest since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution - and officially left one person dead and injured 34 others.
However, press reports at the time had said the toll was much higher.
Rioting was eventually put down on July 13, after the intervention of the Basij forces, or Islamic volunteer militia, who are under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's orders.
Some 1,500 students were said to have been arrested in connection with the rioting at the time, and it is thought some 15 are still behind bars.
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