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http://www.iranmania.com/news/060704p.asp

Iranian regime outlaws commemorations of 1999 student unrest


TEHRAN, July 6 (AFP) - Iranian authorities have slapped a ban on any commemorations marking the fifth anniversary this week of anti-regime student unrest, officials announced Tuesday.

In a statement carried in the Iranian press, security affairs chief for Tehran Ali Taala said the decision to bar gatherings had been taken by the interior ministry, and a request for a student event outside Tehran University had been rejected.

A similar decision has also been applied in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, press reports said.In addition the Tehran University campus will also be shut down for the anniversary. A pro-reform student group said it had been informed the measure was taken to "disinfect the campus because of cockroach infestation", the student news agency ISNA reported.

On July 9, 1999, pro-democracy students clashed with police in Tehran and other cities in unrest sparked by a heavy-handed police and vigilante raid on a smaller dormitory protest over newspaper closures.

Officially, one student was killed and hundreds of others injured in the violence, which prompted a major regime crackdown on dissent in the Islamic republic's universities.

On each anniversary of the unrest, the regime has also sought to prevent any gatherings from taking place. In the run-up to the anniversary last year, Iran was hit by a fresh wave of protests and some 4,000 people were arrested.

On the anniversary itself in 2003, protestors merely took to the streets in their cars, with the sidewalks and universities patrolled by huge numbers of police.

This year the anniversary falls on Thursday, July 8, due to the difference in the Gregorian and Persian calendars.On Monday, student representatives reportedly met with Tehran police chief General Morteza Talaie and Mohsen Gomi, a university representative of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.