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Twenty years ago, Tehran, the capital of Iran, was organized around a week of student protests before security forces launched a brutal crackdown and sent hundreds of people to jail. RFI has spoken with Rouzbek Parsi, Program Manager for the Middle East and North Africa at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm, about the 1999 crisis and its challenges. consequences for today.
The Iranian student demonstrations of July 1999 were the first popular uprising started by the generation born under the regime of the Islamic Republic.
Students demanded greater freedoms, starting with freedom of the press, and less control of religious authorities led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The demonstrations took place two years after the electoral victory of Mohammed Khatami, considered a reformist.
He had won a landslide victory thanks to the youth vote and "women in particular," says Parsi.
"It was on the promise to liberalize society. And while he was trying to do it in different ways, he ran into growing resistance from conservative institutions in the country. "
Freedom of the press was one of the main points of contention. The discussions focused on whether the press should be given greater freedom in Iran or not.
Pivot
When a reformist and pro-Khatami newspaper, Salam, was closed, students took to the streets.
During the violence that followed, 17 people were killed and hundreds imprisoned.
Khatami rejected the violence, saying that he "did not believe that this kind of confrontation with the security apparatus was a winnable battle, and that it should not be recommended," according to Parsi.
The 1999 demonstrations were crucial in Iranian politics, as they showed that "there was some alienation between Reformers still imbued in the system and some of the students who wanted to go faster in reform and transformation," according to Parsi, because Khatami has never publicly supported the protests.
Council of Guardians
The repression that followed showed the "red lines of conservative institutions appointed by the supreme leader rather than elected officials. And when it came to brute force, violence and repression, they had all the cards in their hands, "says Parsi.
"This showed that there was a limit to the confrontation that a reformist government could and could afford. It also showed what the government could do and what conservative institutions could stop. "
Conservative institutions, led by the Guardian Council, report directly to the Supreme Leader.
The role of the Guardian Council is not defined in the constitution, but the Supreme Leader allows him to decide which candidate can participate in which election, a way of countering "the reformist ability to gain power by the ballot", according to Parsi.
The 1999 students wanted to discuss the role and functions of the Guardian Council, but after the crackdown they remained all powerful. (See here the exclusive RFI interview with Abbas Ali Cadkhodai, spokesman of the Guardian Council, in May 2017).
Continuation of the demonstrations
After 1999, everyone expected the younger generation to be separated from politics because of repression.
"But ten years later, in 2009, young people were back on the streets. A next generation willing to try to push the line, which they did.
"And they were repressed again.
"And after that, everyone said" it's not going to happen again ", but I think you'll see that every generation will start fighting again."
Parsi does not know if there is much interest in commemorating the 20th anniversary of the event.
"I think for the moment, everyone is very busy with the crisis with the United States.
"Perhaps for those who see this bigger picture, it's not the most important thing on the agenda for today."
Apart from this, it is unlikely that the Iranian security apparatus will allow open sympathy demonstrations for those who died or were imprisoned in 1999.
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