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| VOICES OF DISSENT | |
 July 13, 1999 
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Student protesters clashed with government hardliners in Iran's most violent demonstrations in nearly two decades. Three experts discuss the students' motives and the government's reaction.
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| Behind the demonstrations | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| A call for change | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: For more on this, Shaul Bakhash, a native of Iran, now a U.S. citizen. He's a professor at George Mason University. Bahman Baktiari, also a native of Iran and now a U.S. citizen, he is an associate professor at the University of Maine. And Stephen Fairbanks, he's director of the Persian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and formerly was the State Department's senior Iran analyst. How important are the student protests?
JIM LEHRER: And now today those protests, as Charles just said, have now been banned. What kind of confrontation does that set up for tomorrow and the days ahead? SHAUL BAKHASH: Well, they were banned already, you know, today and yet they took place. And I think that must be very worrisome for the regime, that they continue despite this attempt to bring them to an end. I think tomorrow we will see a mass demonstration by the pro-government forces to try to show their muscle so we may not see anything tomorrow. But it's clear that the student demands have not yet been met. |
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| The student demands | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: Help us understand now what the students want. Is it correct to call it a pro-democracy movement? Or if not, what should it be called?
JIM LEHRER: Like what specifically? What do they want? BAHMAN BAKTIARI: They really, I think, in terms of the political structure, they want more freedom as President Khatami promised them that would translate into rule of law. JIM LEHRER: Freedom to do what? BAHMAN BAKTIARI: Freedom to interact among different sexes, which have been restricted now by Islamic Code of Behavior, freedom to express their opinion in the newspapers and magazines that they publish, freedom for the press, which is very important to them since it was a closure of a daily that actually sparked this and the parliament's passage of law that would restrict the press freedom that has led to a lot of frustration. So students see themselves a vanguard, in a way, of protecting Khatami. And many slogans as I've been looking at it are really showing to Khatami that they are behind him and they want to move fast. So they're caught. They're caught. The students are caught in a way that that they don't have any recognizable leader. It seems to be spontaneous. They have a lot of organizational capability but yet I think this gives advantage to the authorities that there's no specific leadership of the students. JIM LEHRER: And now today the president has condemned what the students are doing in his name. How do you read that, Mr. Fairbanks?
Some of the student leaders that have talked with our radio service have expressed the concern that perhaps there are provocative elements that have joined in, others that have come in perhaps to discredit the original student movement and perhaps even to pave the way or to give the excuse for a much more repressive crackdown in the days ahead. JIM LEHRER: On the theory that violence then justifies violence to put down the original violence? STEPHEN FAIRBANKS: Yes, that's right.
STEPHEN FAIRBANKS: I think so. I think -- well, they're looking at some of the examples that happened in earlier in the revolution of 20 years ago where there was belief that agents of the central government did acts that the revolutionaries would get blamed for. And so whether there's a reality to this now or not I think a lot of people worry about that. JIM LEHRER: Yes. Well, Professor Bakhash, if, in fact, this comes down to a collision of violent forces, as we've just been discussing, who wins? SHAUL BAKHASH: Well, if there were to be a continuation of these riots and demonstrations and a kind of dissent into disorder, no one would win. But I think we want to look at some of the student demands that Dr. Baktiari mentioned and others they have made because they wish removal of restrictions of the press, a removal of restrictions on elections, hand over of police powers from the supreme leader to the president - an easing of the controls of the judiciary exercises over the court system. These are fairly concrete demands and I think they are very much in line with the demands that the president himself has been making vis-à-vis the conservatives. What I think we need to see in the next few days is whether the president as a result of these demonstrations now has some more leverage with the supreme leader and the conservatives to secure concessions on some of these fairly concrete issues of control over the institutions of the state. |
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| Reading Iran's supreme leader | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: How do you read the signs thus far about the supreme leader and his willingness to make a deal of some kind or in any way relax -- grant anything to what -- to the students?
JIM LEHRER: Did any of your reporters or any of the students that your folks talked to today, Mr. Fairbanks, have anything to add to that in terms of what -- any give - did they see any give, any signs that this was making any headway with them?
JIM LEHRER: That sounds familiar, doesn't it? STEPHEN FAIRBANKS: Yes. But rather than taking their own demands seriously, they were being characterized as foreign lackeys and they really objected to that. JIM LEHRER: Well, Mr. Baktiari, as a practical matter, can the supreme leader and the folks around him give in? I mean, can they maintain what they have and give in, even an inch? BAHMAN BAKTIARI: Well, I think there a lot of misunderstandings about the extent of the supreme leader's authority in controlling events in Iran. And what has happened since the revolution of '79 I think is that there is a horizontal change of higher authorities and there are several people involved in making decisions. So the supreme leader, for example, has to consider the influence of the chief of the judiciary when it comes to these things or for President Raf Sanjani, who has been very quiet these days, behind the scenes. So, it is a very much of a collective decision-making structure. This current supreme leader as a president in the 1980's did not have much of a strict viewpoint. For example, he was the one who called for the Fuqua on Salmon Rushdie to be repealed if Salmon Rushdie would repent, which was a very favorable position. So, within his own mind I think the current supreme leader maybe is trying to balance the factions inside Iran, and the hardliners are putting on the pressure to sustain the current revolutionary fervor inside. |
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| The uprising: A way to moderate hardliners? | ||||||||||||||||||||
 JIM
LEHRER: And the issue then becomes - I mean, in other words, he could,
in fact, use -- what you're suggesting is he might even be able to use
the student uprising as a way to even moderate his hardliners around him
and say hey, guys, we have no choice, we have to do something. Is that
what you're suggesting?
BAHMAN BAKTIARI: Exactly, because for the first me he has come out in his speech and was very emotional trying to address the students and said in his speech that even though you have insulted me, you have burned my picture, this is not going to bother me, which an incredible admission on his part. So I think he is realizing the situation may get out of hand and this could help Khatami. JIM LEHRER: Yes. We've been talking about students here. How representative are they of the rest of the country? Is it just a student uprising, or do they have influence and support elsewhere? SHAUL BAKHASH: Well, obviously, they come from all classes of society, and in that sense, they are representative, but at the same time - JIM LEHRER: You mean the students themselves? SHAUL BAKHASH: Yes. JIM LEHRER: Okay.
JIM LEHRER: What's the practical risk to these other groups if they wanted to join the students? SHAUL BAKHASH: Well, first of all, the risk of being beaten over the head and being attacked by these goons with their chains and their sticks. There have been deaths in the course of these demonstrations and arrests, and also of course civil servants, people with jobs at stake would risk losing them if they ended up in jail or accused by the authorities. JIM LEHRER: What is your feeling, Mr. Fairbanks, looking at this from afar here, about how long this thing must play out before it gets resolved? I mean, when does this, when does the crucial point come - within another few days, another few months? Do you have a feel for that? STEPHEN FAIRBANKS: I wouldn't want to make any predictions, but I would say this is going to continue to bubble along for quite a while. A lot of the tensions in recent months have been in anticipation of parliamentary elections next year, which is an important political development that the factions are lining up for. Much of what's going on is efforts to repress newspapers and political parties that would give voice to more reform-minded politicians. So that takes place next year. The following year will be another - JIM LEHRER: My point -- my question was: is this one of these revolutions that things are going to get violent and things are going to be over quickly? What do you think? Are we seeing something in the next few days, the next couple of weeks?
JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, thank you all three very much. |
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CHARLES
KRAUSE: The Iranian capital, Tehran, has been the scene of angry student
demonstrations for the past six days. They're the largest anti-government
protests since Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979 that overthrew the
Shah. Over the past week, thousands of students have protested the policies
and doctrines of the hard-line clergymen who still control much of the
government and much of the power in Iran. Since they began last week,
the rallies, which were formally banned today, have degenerated into
attacks by police and irregular paramilitary forces on the demonstrators.
Central Tehran has been reduced to chaos. 
CHARLES
KRAUSE: The demonstrations were triggered when authorities raided a
student hostel at the University of Tehran over the weekend. At least
one person was killed and some 20 injured during that raid. The students
blamed Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, and the
other hard-line clerics, who control the armed forces, the police, the
judiciary, and much of the media. Since the election two years ago of
a more moderate cleric, Mohammed Khatami, as Iran's president, millions
of Iranians had hoped for an easing of the social and political restrictions
imposed by the hard-line clerics. That was especially true for the generation
born since the revolution, and the student protesters waved pictures
of the president to show their support for his efforts at moderate reform.
With
angry chants, they also voiced their displeasure with the clerics, who
have resisted the reforms. But today, President Khatami denounced the
demonstrators, and expressed fear that his entire reform movement may
be jeopardized by the chaos. Wire service reports say the streets of
Tehran are now controlled by gangs of Islamic vigilantes. Another major
rally, this time against the student demands, is being planned for tomorrow.
SHAUL
BAKHASH: Well, they are very important. These are the most sustained
protests since the revolution practically. They've gone on for several
days despite the calls by both the hardliners and the moderates that
they come to an end, and the students are posing demands for a change
in the structure of the regime and also attacking the supreme leader
of Iran directly. There have been calls for his ceding power.
BAHMAN
BAKTIARI: I think the students in Iran are not very well organized in
terms of their political vision for Iran. They simply are pursuing these
abstract goals that President Khatami has encouraged them to think about,
civil society, democratization, freedom of press -- 
STEPHEN
FAIRBANKS: Well, he's condemning the violence that took place today.
I didn't really think he was condemning the original cause of the demonstrations,
the calls for fear of political development and access to information.
And what he was saying today I think in condemning the violence is something
that many of the student leaders themselves have been concerned about,
how the demonstrations over the last several days have changed from
initially being relatively peaceful to now degenerating into something
that's including burning of banks and attacks on buses and so on. 
JIM
LEHRER: And is that a legitimate fear in your opinion? 
SHAUL
BAKHASH: I see very little signs of a willingness to make concessions.
The supreme leader yesterday did make a statement condemning the attack
on the student dormitories, but he also blamed outside agents and instigators
for the demonstrations and today as we have seen, despite his condemnation
of the attacks on the students, they have continued. So there's very
little give, I think, in a serious way on the part of the regime. But
nevertheless, they have to consider seriously the extent of these riots
and demonstrations, the evidence of student discontent, and the very
difficult consequences of continuing to try and control this through
sheer repression.
STEPHEN
FAIRBANKS: No, they didn't express that. They expressed continuing frustration
with the lack of responsiveness of the government, particularly when
the supreme leader, Khamenei, condemned the students as saying they
were being stirred up by foreign agents. 
SHAUL
BAKHASH: Yes. Many of them of course are -- all of them are children
of the revolution and have been subjected for 20 years to this Islamic
propaganda, and it doesn't seem to have had much effect. But at the
same time as we know from the experience of this and other countries,
students tend to be more willing to take risks than others. And we haven't
yet seen, I think, so far in addition to expressions of sympathy and
support, other groups joining the students on the streets. So they're
representative in the sense that they come for all the different classes
in society, but they're much more willing to be politically engaged
than the rest of society.
SHAUL
BAKHASH: First of all, the news this evening said that the president
or his representatives have agreed to meet with a representative group
of members of student associations so they can table their demands and
grievances. So we may see some response to that in the next few days.
And it could be, it's hard to tell, that the president made the strong
condemnatory statement he did this evening because he wants to calm
his down and try and deal with the student demands in the next few days.
I think unless - you know - unless the authorities find a way of meeting
the demands of the students and members of the rest of society, this
is a very large middle class in Iran, we can expect the resumption of
troubles.