July 1999 Student-Led Uprising Shook Foundations Of Tyranny In Iran
By The US Alliance For Democratic Iran (07/14/04)
On July 9, 1999, six days of student-led uprising in Iran against the ruling fundamentalists shook the regime to its foundations, marking a new chapter in the history of Iranian people’s two decades of long struggle to overthrow tyranny and establish a democratic and secular government.
With the blessing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mohammad Khatami, uniformed and plain-clothes security forces brutally cracked down on students and thousands of other Iranians who had joined them. Several thousands were arrested and hundreds killed or wounded.
Nevertheless, if not suppressed, the uprising, which quickly spread to nearly two dozen other cities, had the potential of sweeping the theocracy from power. In a cover-page story, The Economist magazine billed the uprising as “Iran’s Second Revolution” and a commentary in the CBS News said that “a sense of revolution has returned to Iran.”
After nearly two decades of relentless struggle, the movement for democracy and popular sovereignty - the unfulfilled aspirations of the 1979 anti-monarchic revolution - burst out in the open on July 9 for the world to see. The students, chanting "Death to despotism, Death to dictators," marched to various neighborhoods where they were joined by thousands of citizens from all walks of life, particularly the young generation.
Since then, students and Iranians inside Iran and abroad have marked July 9 as a national day of saying “no” to the mullahs’ regime. Every year, the clerics have tried to suppress anti-government anniversary demonstrations by the students and the youths. Last year alone, more the 4,000 students were arrested during week-long student demonstrations preceding the July 9 anniversary.
This year, the ruling mullahs, reeling from political and diplomatic fall-out of the sham parliamentary election in February, and having to deal with anti-government demonstrations and strikes since January, put into effect elaborate security and anti-riot measures to thwart this year’s anniversary protests.
The plan, under the absurd pretext of helping with the traffic, went into action several months ago and included flooding Tehran’s major streets and intersections, especially around university campuses, with security and special anti-riot forces.
Agence France Presse, quoting the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the Paris-based opposition group, said that “political prisoners and some university students in Iran had started a hunger strike to commemorate July 1999 campus protests.” The Council added that "students at several universities throughout Iran have also joined the hunger strike in protest against the clerical regime's suppressive policies".
Disturbing reports from Iran’s prisons and the families of political prisoners bespeak of the deteriorating medical condition of many prisoners. During the weeks preceding the July 9 anniversary, many student political prisoners were denied medical temporary leave to seek urgent life-saving outside assistance. Their families also received death threats and some of them were detained.
According to a recent Amnesty International press release, Akabr Mohammadi, a student activist who was arrested during the July uprising, “is in Evin prison serving a fifteen year prison sentence.” He is reported to be “suffering from serious health problems” and “without prompt and adequate access to medical treatment,” his life would be in jeopardy.
Despite all these suppressive measures, reports from Iran indicate that as night fell on July 8, thousands of students and youths took to the streets in various parts of Tehran and other cities. Iranians called Farsi broadcasting media based abroad to reiterate their determination to defy the mullahs’ security forces.
The July 9 student-led uprising had an undisputable impact on hastening the eventual fall of Iran’s ruling tyranny. It gave Iranians self-confidence and a sense of power and legitimacy in their demands for democracy and justice. It tore the façade of the bogus champions of human rights and reform, such as Khatami. More importantly, it strengthened the historic ties between the student movement and the nationwide struggle for democracy.
The imprisonments, tortures, and executions, public stoning, amputations and floggings, however, have utterly failed in undermining the resolve of the democracy movement against ruling religious fascism to bring this regime down as a first step toward the establishment of democracy, secularism, popular sovereignty and the rule of law in Iran.
Since 1999, Tehran has continued to kill, maim, and imprison dissidents while Western democracies, particularly European nations, have expanded lucrative trade with Iran. Thanks to advanced anti-riot gear and other equipment bought from abroad, the mullahs are better equipped now than they were in 1999, to arrest, and torture students, women and the youths.
As Tehran is turning the heat on dissent inside the country and acted increasingly belligerent abroad by continuing its nuclear weapons program, spreading its fundamentalist network in Iraq and recruiting suicide bombers, the free world has arrived at a historic cross road: To continue to appease the mullahs ruling Iran or to side with Iranian people and their struggle to establish an Iran free of torture, terror, fundamentalism, and weapons of mass destruction.
The choice, no doubt, will have strategic reverberations in Iran, the Middle East and the Western world for decades to come. This is our chance to be on the right side of history by supporting Iranians and anti-fundamentalist democratic opposition forces who are indeed the true vehicle of change in Iran.
The US Alliance for Democratic Iran (www.usadiran.org), is a US-based, independent, non-profit policy advocacy organization, which aims to advance a US policy in support of Iranian people’s aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government. The USADI is not affiliated with any government agencies, political groups or parties.
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