TEHRAN: Iranian students scuffled with riot police near the Jordanian Embassy yesterday after some groups threatened to seize the building in the latest protest linked to Israel’s attacks in Gaza.
Demonstrators shouting anti-Israeli and anti-Western slogans demanded the mission’s closure and pushed back police who had blocked the street leading to the embassy in Tehran, some briefly breaking through the cordon before being chased back.
A few hurled shoes at police, who fought back with batons.
The rally ended after a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, told the crowd of hundreds of people not to break into embassies or clash with police.
An Iranian daily this week said that student groups had written letters to the Jordanian ambassador and the head of the Egyptian mission “giving them 48 hours to choose between clearly condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza or leaving Iran’s soil.” Like Egypt, Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel. If demands were not met students would “carry out their revolutionary duty as happened on 13th Aban, 1358,” the Iranian date when students stormed the US Embassy in 1979, the Seda-ye Edalat newspaper said.
In Athens, pro-Palestinian protesters staged a demonstration during New Year celebrations in Greece, chanting slogans and burning flags of Israel, the United States and the European Union.
About 200 demonstrators chanted “hands off Gaza,” as they gathered near an outdoor concert in Athens main-square shortly before midnight.
“This is our New Year’s message: For this carnage to stop in the Middle East and for governments around the world to wake up and stop this,” protest organizer Theodoros Koutsoubos said.
The demonstration was peaceful, but scores of riot police took up positions around the capital’s main Syntagma Square.
In Brussels, thousands took the streets in Brussels on Wednesday calling for an end to Israeli bombing of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, burning Israeli flags and urging European leaders to take action. Police said some 6,500 had turned out while organizers said 10,000 had answered the call to march through the Belgian capital, issued by 40 different groups, including the Belgian-Palestinian Association, Magasins du Monde and the Communist Workers League.
Despite the bouts of flag-burning, which included at least one US flag, there were no reports of trouble and police said they had made no arrests among the mainly Muslim protesters. Many protesters were carrying or draped in the colors of the Palestinian flag, with some carrying banners bearing slogans such as; “Stop the genocide of the Palestinian people,” and “No to war, No to occupation.” At the front of the march, Palestinian representative to the European Union Laila Shahid berated EU leaders over their reaction to the Israeli attacks.
“The European foreign ministers met in Paris yesterday to call for a 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire. That’s a disgrace to international law and the massacre victims,” she said.
“It’s not right to call for a temporary cease-fire after five days of bombings, a massacre that has left more than 400 dead and 2,000 injured,” she added.
Shahid said the EU, along with the United States, Russia and the UN were in part responsible for the current situation in the Gaza Strip because no solution had been put forward, “The European Union is content with its donor’s role but it must assume its political role because it will be judged by history.”
