Word: tehran
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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President Khatami is in a bind. Two days day after Iran?s moderate president warned that further democracy protests would not be tolerated, the streets of Tehran are firmly in the hands of militia bands sent by Iran's conservative clerical leaders to crush the pro-democracy protest movement, while pro-Khatami student activists run for their lives. The spectacle of Khatami denouncing the students who?d launched their protest to defend his own reforms from conservative attack captures the dilemma of a man trying to change Iran?s theocracy from within. "Khatami was caught between contending forces...
Smart tyrants know they?re in trouble when tens of thousands of unarmed demonstrators suddenly lose their fear of the security forces. And when 10,000 students fought a sixth day of 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...
...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...
...been 20 years since Tehran?s streets last saw masses of pro-democracy students chanting "Death to dictatorship." But Monday?s clashes between riot police and 10,000 demonstrators carries the danger of repeating an episode of Chinese, rather than Iranian, history ? the brutal clearing of Tiananmen Square 10 years ago. Demonstrations against a crackdown on liberal newspapers began last week, but 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...
...authoritarian social control. "Provoking confrontation could cut the ground out from under Khatami," says TIME correspondent William Dowell. "But it?s a risky course, because it could eventually leave the hard-liners facing a unified rebellion from the population." Monday?s protests went ahead despite an order by Tehran?s National Security Council forbidding demonstrations without official permission. And as much as Khatami can see the danger of pursuing a direct confrontation with the security establishment, he may not be able to rein in a student body that is beginning to discover its collective power. And if the students...