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Iranian students, in massive protests unlike anything the country has seen since July 1999, gathered in universities in Tehran and in other major cities across the country in November 2002 to protest the death sentence handed down against a popular history professor, Hashem Aghajari. They shouted, “Death to tyranny! Death to the Taliban in Kabul and in Tehran!”
The numbers of the protesters and the sheer audacity of the students, who refused to be cowed when the regime called out its paramilitary shock troops, clearly threw the Islamic Republic leaders for a loop. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and other hard-liners called for a harsh military crackdown. Instead, on 17 November, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini blinked, ordering the court to “review” the death sentence against Aghajari.
Something has happened in Iran since the first massive student protests in July 1999: the protestors have lost their fear. This is a monumental development; it ought to be on the front pages of every newspaper. And yet, it has been missed by just about every “mainstream” news organization in the United States. It has also been missed, until recently, by the U.S. State Department, which had “no message” for demonstrators who rocked the country last July in an earlier wave of anti-regime protests.
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