BEIRUT - Iranian students staged anti-Government protests nationwide Tuesday, turning an annual commemoration of student political activism into an opportunity to voice opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the regime the him back.
Videos posted online showed students marching around campus grounds with green banner - the color of the opposition – keep pictures of arrested students and sing "Death of the dictator" and "Student prisoners free."
Security forces responded with a heavy security deployment and at least eight arrests, according to the foreign student website. Official media do not cover the protests or report arrests.
Riot police and security forces surrounded University of Tehran, the epicentre of the student activism, according to witnesses and online videos. Iranian law prohibits security forces from entering campus but said students, more than 400 police officers had entered members militia to intimidate students.
Security forces built scaffolding around the entire campus and it with tents, in an obvious attempt to communication between student protestors inside and outside, covered passers-by truncated after videos and testimonies.
"The University is practically under siege, nobody can get and no one can safely out." It shows the Government is still very afraid of us, said a student from the University of Tehran."
Security forces lined up cars, buses and motorcycles for miles along the tree-lined Enghelab Avenue, where just over a year ago millions Iranians staged protests for change and democracy, videos showed.
Authorities responded 2009 broken regularly with heavy security force deployments, as protests in Iran after the controversial presidential elections.
Iranian students celebrated national student day on December 7th since 1953 to kill forces fire on student demonstrations at Tehran University, three students in the opening of the Shah. The day symbolizes fight against dictators, and has drawn in recent years large protests against the Islamic Republic's regime.
Student activists in the Iran said that crackdown on the opposition and student activism, your needs have grown in the past year.
A student from the northeastern city in the Iran said "a lot of students hope until last year that the Islamic Republic could be reformed, but many of us think this system needs a major overhaul".
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and former President Mohamad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued statements of support for the occasion and encourages students not to give up.
"You must have hope;" You have to try and have no fear before the high price to pay, "Mr. Khatami said posted on Iranian websites in a statement."
Iranian human rights organisations and student activist groups to fight, at least 100 students are in prison because of their political views and hundreds more were banned from your training.
Write toFarnaz Fassihi at the farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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