Iranian protests strengthen, despite Khamenei's warning

Tehran (Agencies): Thousands of Iranian students ignored official warnings to demonstrate for the fourth day running on Tuesday against a dissident's death sentence and to demand freedom of speech and political reform.

Some 5,000 students gathered at Tehran University, once the hotbed of revolutionary fervor that overthrew the shah two decades ago, in support of academic Hashem Aghajari, sentenced to hang for questioning clerical rule in the Islamic Republic.

"The execution of Aghajari is the execution of the university," the demonstrators chanted. "Political prisoners should be freed."

The momentum of protest appeared to be growing with bigger crowds in Tehran each day and demonstrations spreading to the provincial cities of Tabriz, Isfahan, Urumiyeh and Hamedan.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure and commander of the armed forces, issued a veiled warning late on Monday to parliament, the government and judiciary to settle their differences.

"The day the three branches are unable or unwilling to settle major problems the (supreme) leadership will, if it thinks it necessary, use the popular forces to intervene," he told high-ranking officials in comments broadcast on television.

"I hope that will never happen," he said.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the Basij and other hardline militia are frequently referred to as "popular forces", and when called upon can easily smash pro-reform protests.

One Iranian analyst, who asked not to be named, said the warning was a reminder of a 1999 clampdown on massive student protests over newspaper closures that officially left one dead, dozens injured and even more students thrown in jail.

Khamenei's comments came amid intensifying wrangling which has seen leading reformers arrested or handed draconian sentences by the conservative-dominated judiciary, and the courts in turn coming under unprecedented attack.

The crisis has seen a hardening of positions on both sides, with some reformers even threatening to walk out of the Islamic regime.

The reformers — who hold the legislative and the executive — are trying to push through a challenge to the power of conservatives who control the courts, legislative watchdog bodies and much of the economy.

President Mohammad Khatami, re-elected by a landslide last year, is set on a course of confrontation with conservatives entrenched within the state who have blocked his attempts to reform the Islamic Republic.

Two draft bills passed by Khatami's allies in parliament to challenge hardline authority in the judiciary and a constitutional watchdog body look set to be vetoed by unelected conservative opponents.

Reformists say Aghajari's death sentence is connected to the progress of the bills and is an attempt to intimidate them.

"We hope the government and parliament defend the people's vote, otherwise the only option is the resignation of the parliament and president," Meysan Yousefzadeh, a member of Tehran University student council told the protesters.

Saeed Babaee, secretary of Tehran University student council, said six people had been arrested and one beaten after Monday's protests at another Tehran campus.