Word: khameini
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...pitched battles against riot police in Tehran Tuesday despite dire warnings against demonstrating, Iran?s leaders ? who themselves made a revolution 20 years ago ? may be feeling history catching up with them. The student protesters are targeting the country?s hard-line religious leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme ruler who also controls the security forces. Although many of the demonstrators are carrying portraits of President Mohamed Khatami, whose efforts at reform and democratization are being blocked by the hard-liners, they won?t necessarily abide by his call for calm to avoid provoking a crackdown by conservatives...
...Iran?s students are the children of the technocratic elite who keep the country running," says TIME correspondent William Dowell, who covered the 1979 revolution from Tehran. "Attacking them could deepen the crisis and even unite the population against Khameini. And if the protest movement expands, it can?t be assumed that the military would necessarily remain loyal to Khameini, in which case you could potentially see another revolution." For Khameini and Khatami, both veterans of the movement that overthrew the shah 20 years ago, the rapid spread of the protest movement from Tehran to at least 12 other Iranian...
...they escalated after an attack by police and hard-line militants on Thursday night killed one student and injured four. The latest clashes come amid a fierce battle for Iran?s future that pits reformers led by President Mohamed Khatami against Iran's conservative clergy, led by Ayatollah Ali Khameini, which retains ultimate power over the country's government and electoral system. President Khatami, who was elected in 1997 in a landslide denunciation by voters of the conservative clergy, supports the demonstrators but has urged them to avoid provocation. And with good reason: Thursday?s attack may signal the willingness...
...pictures of the lasting influence of Ayatullah Khameini...