TEHRAN, 15 June 2003 — Iran’s judiciary arrested “scores” of pro-clergy militants yesterday, including a vigilante leader, over attacks on Tehran student dormitories, state-run radio reported.
“Scores of people who suspiciously attacked a dormitory and inflicted damages have been identified and arrested,” Tehran Radio quoted a judiciary statement as saying.
Students said dozens of armed vigilantes — who pledge allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei — attacked students sleeping in their rooms in the Hemmat dormitory of Allameh Tabatabai University and Tehran University’s Chamran dormitory before dawn yesterday. More than 50 students were reportedly injured.
Tehran Radio said among those arrested was Saeed Asghar, a vigilante leader who two years ago shot and seriously wounded a top adviser to reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
The arrests came after police, under pressure from reformers, demanded legal action against vigilantes who have taken the law into their hands to punish demonstrators and onlookers in the capital since protests broke out Tuesday.
“Most of detainees are ruffians with previous (police) records,” the radio quoted the statement as saying.
“We were sleeping in our beds. Suddenly we heard windows being smashed. Fists and kicks by hard-line vigilantes woke up some of the students held up in their rooms,” Allameh Tabatabai University student Mojtaba Najafi said.
The Tehran dorm attacks followed overnight clashes between hundreds of pro-cleric militants and security forces with Iranians throughout the capital.
Friday’s standoffs were the most intense and widespread of four consecutive nights of protests in Tehran, which were sparked by university students and snowballed into broader displays of opposition to Iran’s clerical establishment.
The student news agency ISNA meanwhile said that two leading members of the liberal opposition, critical of certain facets of the regime, were arrested yesterday.
The agency said Taghi Rahmani and Reza Alidjani, both members of a group called the Religious Nationalist Alliance, were detained on the order of Tehran’s chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi on charges of having secret contacts with students.
