TEHRAN, 29 September 2005 — Heavy clashes broke yesterday in front of the British Embassy in Tehran between police and Islamist students trying to enter the embassy compound. Tear gas was used as anti-riot units aided police prevent hundreds of violent students from entering the compound, where they wanted to bring down the British flag.
Scores of protesters incensed by European Union moves to send Iran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council hurled stones and smoke bombs over the walls of the British Embassy compound.
Several students and police officers were injured in the clashes, and several students were reported arrested. Tehran police chief Gen. Talaei was at the scene supervising operations.
The students had been at a state-organized gathering to protest against last Saturday’s anti-Iran resolution approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was proposed by the EU trio of Britain, Germany and France.
After the police cooled down the protest, some 200 students staged a sit-in in front of the embassy, shouting slogans demanding the embassy be closed and the ambassador expelled.”
Some also shouted “this espionage den should be closed,” referring to the former American Embassy in Tehran which was occupied by students in 1979 for 444 days and since then called “spy den.”
After an hour police dispersed the crowd and the situation in the area returned to normal. Police denied reports of explosions near the embassy — but witnesses said students were seen throwing fireworks into the compound.
“Nuclear energy is our legitimate right,” they chanted. “We will fight, we will die, we will never surrender.” During the protest, organized by the hard-line Basij militia, British and US flags were burned. Groups of protesters hurled stones, tomatoes and smoke bombs into the walled compound and some tried to push past police to reach the embassy’s main gate.
Young women in black head-to-toe chadors held placards which said: “We are your serious enemies” and “The den of the old fox should be closed” — a reference to London’s reputation for cunning and deceit in Iran. One protester, his forehead cut by a police baton, left two bloody handprints on the embassy’s brass name plate.
In the absence of a US Embassy in Tehran, the British diplomatic mission typically bears the brunt of anti-Western protests in Iran. Tehran signed the NPT protocol in late 2003 in an effort to allay concerns that it may be developing nuclear weapons under the cover of an atomic energy program.
But Iran’s Parliament has not ratified the protocol meaning that its implementation is not legally binding.
The bill was given single urgency status, meaning that it takes precedence over regular legislation, in a vote supported by 162 members, with 42 against and 15 abstaining, IRNA state news agency said.
“If the plan is approved, it will urge the government to stop the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol until our right to access nuclear technology for a fuel cycle is officially recognized,” IRNA quoted Parliament Speaker Gholamali Haddadadel as saying.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday the Islamic state might stop implementing the Additional Protocol and resume uranium enrichment — which can be used to make atomic bombs - if the process to refer it to the Security Council continued.
On Tuesday, it added it could scale back trade ties with those countries that backed the resolution to refer it to the UN’s top body. The proposed legislation also requires the government to supply Parliament with detailed figures on Iran’s trade with those countries that voted for the IAEA resolution.
