President Mohammad Khatami of Iran has promised to put down student protests in the capital after a sixth day of unrest.
In a message read yesterday on state television, the reformist president, who is the hero of many of the student protesters, described their continued demonstrations in defiance of a government ban as "deviations which will be repressed with force and determination".
Iranian security forces and Islamic vigilantes took control of most of central Tehran late yesterday after battling with pro-democracy protesters in some of the country's most violent scenes since the 1979 revolution. There was little sign of opposition as members of the paramilitary Basij forces and Islamic vigilantes triumphantly patrolled deserted streets with guns drawn.
"We donate to the leader the blood in our veins," they chanted in reference to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is widely seen to be close to hard liners. "Praise on you Hezbollah," they chanted. (In Iran's domestic context, Hezbollah refers to zealous Muslims who provide grassroot support to the Islamic state.)
Security forces earlier shot in the air and fired tear gas at angry demonstrators who defied a government ban on protests in Tehran yesterday. Protesters set fire to cardboard boxes and tyres to combat the stench of the gas.
Hundreds of demonstrators had tried to storm the heavy iron gates of the Interior Ministry, which controls the police, as the riots moved away from Tehran University, scene of six days of protests by students against a police and vigilante attack during a peaceful rally last week.
Shops the sprawling bazaar shut as the unrest approached the capital's main commercial district. Vigilantes armed with automatic weapons directed traffic in a street leading to the bazaar where protesters had smashed windows of two state bank branches and set fire to a minibus.
An Iranian newspaper photographer was shot in the leg, while a crew for German television was beaten and its car badly damaged, witnesses said.
Some residents joined the students in chanting: "We don't want a government of force, we don't want a mercenary police", outside the gates of Tehran University. They also shouted: "Army brothers, why kill brothers?" a slogan often used during the 1979 revolution which toppled the US-backed shah.
Crowds earlier tried to attack the offices of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, hated by many moderates for its virulent diatribes against them, but were pushed back by police.
President Khatami accused student leaders of "attacking the foundations of the regime and of wanting to foment tensions and disorder" in his message issued after a meeting with security chiefs.
Some of the slogans chanted by the demonstrators "very clearly target the fundamental principles of the government and political progress," the president said. "The slogans of these groups are demagogic, provocative and aimed at creating social divisions and attacking national security," he said.
Demonstrators yesterday chanted slogans directly attacking the Shia Muslim religious hierarchy which has dominated life in Iran since the 1979 revolution and of which the president is a senior member. "The people are poor, but the clergy live like gods," the students chanted.
President Khatami condemned the destruction caused to buildings in the city centre and in the bazaar district nearby during street battles. "Causing damage to public property and disturbing the daily life of the people is unacceptable," the president said. "Happily this current has no roots and we will challenge it - peacefully if we can."
He also alleged that the protests had been infiltrated by agents pro- vocateurs. "Some of the people arrested had no links with academic circles and weren't even students," he declared. The United States dismissed as "nonsense" charges from Iranian officials that it had interfered in Iran's internal affairs by calling for Tehran to protect protesters or played a role in fomenting the unrest.
"That's utter nonsense," the State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, told reporters. "We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Iran, period."