* After fighting with police and vigilantes on Wednesday, Tehran University students set their dorms on fire Thursday as protests grew more violent overnight.
* Violence rocked the northern Tabriz region again on Wednesday as up to 16 were reported killed in the clashes including three students.
* Students at Ahwaz University in the southern Khuzistan Province also held protests on Wednesday against the regime.
The Tehran University dormitory complex is set ablaze as Iranian students demonstrate over goevermental restrictions. Two of the Iranian capital's main universities were rocked by protests and clashes between students and police overnight, press reports said.(AFP/ISNA)
Iranian student protesters continued their battle over governmental restrictions at universities in Tehran. On Wednesday:
Students who covered their faces with scarves lit fires outside dormitories through Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, photographs showed. By dawn the streets were littered with hundreds of stones they had thrown.ISNA added that the demonstrators chanted slogans against the Islamic republic’s top officials.
Deputy Tehran Governor Abdollah Roshan told the ISNA students news agency 40 policemen and four students had been injured. He said the police had arrested six people.
Senior student leader Abdollah Momeni said up to 2,000 students had gathered for the protest over the expulsion of some students and the way authorities had been handling critics.
He added 20 had been seized by Islamic vigilantes who broke into the dormitories.
"The main reason for the objections in recent days goes back to the limitations imposed on universities and political students after the new government came to power," Momeni said.
Iranian students chant slogans while attending a protest at the University of Tehran, Iran May 24, 2006. Stone-throwing Iranian students fought police and Islamic vigilantes on Wednesday in protest against restrictions imposed by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, witnesses said. (REUTERS/Stringer)
Iran is accusing the US and its allies of provoking the violence in the country.
The New York Sun is reporting:
In Qom, the theocracy was absorbing the aftershocks of a candid interview from Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who told an Iraqi news agency that the current Islamic Republic has failed to deliver the democracy it promised in the 1979 revolution.
The stirrings inside Iran are the most serious challenge to befall the mullahs since the protests that accompanied the 2003 commemorations of the July 9, 1999, Tehran University student rebellions. They also suggest the regime that America and Europe are now hoping to cajole into suspending its nuclear program may be more fragile than intelligence agencies recognize.
One of the steering committee members of Iran's largest student organization chapter at Tehran Polytechnic University, Abbas Hakim Zadeh said in an interview from Tehran Tuesday that his organization was now 90% in favor of rejecting slow reform in favor of nonviolent resistance.
The Tehran University dormitory complex is set ablaze as Iranian students demonstrate. (AFP/ISNA)
Also, Clashes continue in the Tabriz region of Iran with ethnic Azeris who were upset over a "Cockroach Cartoon" published in a major Iranian newspaper:
The Southern Azerbaijan National Revival Movement (SANRM) bureau in Baku told APA that before the clash with Iranian police, the demonstrators, who were protesting against the caricature published by the newspaper "Iran", burnt the newspaper bureau in Urmiya. Eastern Azerbaijan governor called on the protesters to calm down. But they attacked the Urmiya TV and Radio Company in Kashani Avenue. Special forces and police forces trying to disperse the demonstrators fired at. (Picture PanArmenian News) Some demonstrators are reported to have been injured and some killed. Special troops managed to disperse the protesters in Marand city. Police forces beat the protesters in Abrasan square in Tabriz.12 Azerbaijani protesters were arrested in Tehran outside of the "Iran" newspaper offices.
Ogtay Tabrizli reports from Tabriz that police forces killed 16 demonstrators during the rally on 22 May. Azerbaijani parliamentarian elected from Tabriz Akbar Alami came into conflict with Persian parliamentarians in Iranian parliament today. Ogtay Tabrizli noted that three of the killed protesters have been identified. They are students of Tabriz University Khalil Ufugi, Vahid Baverniyah and Jamshid Zanjan.
The Iranian government is denying there were any deaths surrounding the "cockroach" protests.
Previously on the Iranian protests this week:
This Time Protesters Riot in Iran Over a Cockroach Cartoon!
Iranian University Students Protest Against the Mullacracy
Publius Pundit has more pictures from the student rallies.
Regime Change Iran has more photos from the protests yesterday.
Omar at Iraq the Model has news today on Iran's meddling ways.
MEMRI has a very interesting take on the rioting.
Hat Tip Sugiero
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