By ELAINE SCIOLINO

July 13, 1999

New York Times

TEHERAN, Iran -- The most widespread and sustained protests

since Iran's revolution two decades ago spread throughout the

country Monday, while security police and their vigilantesupporters

moved to crush pro-democracy student demonstrators outsideTeheran

University.

Students demonstrated in 18 cities and towns, including major

cosmopolitan cities like Tabriz, Shiraz and Isfahan and moretraditional

cities like Mashad and Yazd, Iran's official news agency reported.

Wielding batons and lobbing tear gas canisters, the securityforces

emptied Teheran University Monday evening in a campaign to crushthe

demonstrations. In Teheran, students who had gathered inside thegates

of the sprawling university complex in the heart of the capitalfainted from

tear gas that could be smelled more than a mile away.

"Filthy swine! Filthy swine!" one red-faced student screamed overand

over from inside the cramped quarters of one of the caged-invehicles.

"Jerk!" yelled another. Others yelled obscenities that are seldomheard in

public in Iran.

One woman, wrapped in the all-encompassing black chador, cursedthe

clergy with obscenities. A number of people were injured andreceived

assistance from health personnel in a blood transfusion truckand

passersby.

Dozens of injured students were taken to the campus mosque for

treatment, and a parade of ambulances streamed in and out ofthe

campus as a voice on a loudspeaker called all medical students tohelp.

Students set a huge bonfire to try to neutralize the tear gas, onewitness

said.

The vigilantes, fervent revolutionaries who serve as volunteersfor the

regime, carried cables, chains and batons as they emerged fromthe

government-owned buses that parked near the university, thewitness

said. The students had intended to stage an all-night sit-in, butby

midnight, most of them had left the campus.

The demonstrations -- and the crackdown -- reflect a deep struggleover

the course of Iran's revolution. Students are impatient with theslow pace

of reforms promised by President Mohammed Khatami. The studentsare

not calling for a change in the Islamic system of government,rather for a

quickening of the movement towards democracy and the rule of law.

On the other side are the diehard Islamic revolutionaries, some ofthem in

positions of power, some of them veterans of Iran's long war withIraq,

who take their lead from Iran's Supreme leader, Ayatollah AliKhamenei,

and believe that the country's moves towards democracy are abetrayal

of revolutionary purism.

Khatami does not control the police and security forces, whohave

enraged and frightened many Iranians by a campaign of intimidationthat

included the murders of prominent intellectuals as well aspolitical attacks

on Khatami's allies in the government.

The demonstrations and the crackdowns do not mean that Iran'sIslamic

Republic is in jeopardy. "We should not assume that this movementcould

turn into a revolution," said an editorial Monday in thereformist

newspaper, Neshat. "It's neither nor possible nor desirable."

The five days of rage were sparked by the passage by Iran'sparliament

of a tough new press law and by the closure of Salam, apopular

left-leaning Islamic newspaper.

Security forces and vigilantes stormed a dormitory at TeheranUniversity

on Thursday night and beat students as they slept, pushing somefrom

second- and third-story windows. Although the official death tollstood at

two, Iran's newspapers, quoting students, claimed that betweenfive and

eight students had died.

As striking as the extent of the protests throughout the countryis the form

they are taking. Until now, criticisms of Ayatollah Khamenei, whois in

charge of the armed forces, the security and intelligenceapparatus, and

radio and television, were made privately. Now the criticismof

Khamenei, who lacks the religious credentials of his predecessor,the

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and has resisted any embrace ofreform,

has burst into the open.

In an effort to calm the highly charged atmosphere, Khameneion

Monday delivered an emotional speech condemning the attack by

security forces on a dormitory last week after the first protests.He spoke

to a hand-picked crowd of thousands in a cavernous hall reservedsolely

for his use.

"This bitter incident has broken my heart," he said in the speech,which

was broadcast on both radio and television. He added that itwas

un-Islamic to enter the private spaces of individuals.

In a stunning acknowledgment that some of the demonstrators hadturned

against him, he added, "Even if things make you angry and theycondemn

me, even if they set fire to my picture, remain silent. Take noaction until

the day that the country needs it!"

Men and women in the crowd moaned and wept loudly.

In his speech he said, "The greatest dream and honor for me isthat I give

my life in this honorable, glorious magnificent path" -- astatement the

security forces and the vigilantes may have interpreted as amessage that

they should risk their lives instead.

Khamenei also blamed "enemies," including the United States, forthe

attack on the dormitory. Over and over, the crowd chanted "Deathto America."

But at the university, there was no crying for the ayatollah. Whena

speaker tried to read the text of Khamenei's speech, the crowdbooed.

"Commander-in-chief resign!" and "Down with the dictator," theychanted.

There were posters of President Khatami but none of Ayatollah

Khamenei, whose photographs and portraits dominate publicbuildings,

shops and landscapes throughout Iran along with those of hispredecessor.

Khatami called on students to exercise restraint, saying in ameeting with

education officials, "students should cooperate with thegovernment and

allow law and order to be established in society."

In another incident Monday, uniformed and plainclothes securitypolice

and anti-riot police protected by shields and helmets clashed withseveral

hundred student protesters. The police rounded up dozens ofstudents in

Valiasr Square, one of Teheran's busiest intersections, beatingsome of

them and forcing them into cages mounted on the back of pickuptrucks.

The crackdown came after a police car and two police motorcycleswere

set on fire, apparently by students, one witness said.

Stone-throwing students smashed storefront windows. Many

shopkeepers pulled down the gates of their stores both to preventlooting

and to get a closer look at the action in the streets. Policefroze traffic just

before rush hour. Helicopters kept watch overhead. Securitypolice

roamed among the thousands of people gathered in the squarearresting

suspicious-looking young people and rounding up photographersto

prevent them from taking pictures.

Throughout the day at the university, students stood up on amakeshift

dais near the law school and one after one explained their viewsand

stated their demands. Among them are the creation of a nationalday of

mourning in memory of the students who were killed, the holding ofa

public trial for the people who ordered and carried out thedormitory

attack, and the return of the bodies of those killed.

One speaker in a black shirt criticized the lack of organization."We have

to have a plan and a leader," said the man, who, like the otherspeakers,

did not identify himself. "We have to find out which of ourfriends have

been killed, and who they are."

Another speaker called for the execution of the perpetrators oflast

Thursday's dormitory attack.

A number of student organizers said they believed that the all-dayopen

microphone was a trap set by infiltrators in their midst who bothtried to

provoke the students into more radical action and ended up beingpart of

Monday night's crackdown. One speaker said that some in thecrowd

were offering razor blades to students who might want to useviolence.

"It was very strange that the students were allowed to speak sofreely,"

he said. "The whole thing is too suspicious."