Iran Student Protests 1999
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2018
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In July 1999, students in Iran took to the streets demanding reform. At the time it was the largest anti government protest since the Islamic revolution. Alex Last spoke to Ahmad Batebi in 2013, about how he became an unwitting symbol of the protest movement and suffered years of mistreatment in prison. (Photo: Ahmad Batebi holds up a T-shirt belonging to an injured friend, Tehran, July 12, 1999. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Hello and thank you for downloading The Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last. In July 1999 Iranian students staged mass |
| 0:46.6 | demonstrations for the first time since the Islamic Revolution 20 years earlier. In 2013 I spoke to one of those who took part who became |
| 0:56.6 | one of the unwitting icons of the pro-democracy movement. Thousands of students in Iran have taken to the streets in a pro-democracy protest. |
| 1:15.7 | Iran has seen nothing like this for 20 years since the Islamic revolution which overthrew |
| 1:20.4 | the Shah. This time the anger is against strict religious rule. The |
| 1:24.8 | demands are for democracy and the free press. |
| 1:27.0 | We didn't have any political experience. We were just a student movement, but we organized this demonstration. That was good experience for us. |
| 1:47.0 | Armad Botaby was a film student in Tehran when it all started. On the 8th of July 1999 |
| 1:54.9 | students at the city's university held a small peaceful rally to demonstrate |
| 1:59.6 | against the closure of a reformist newspaper. |
| 2:02.6 | Iran was then politically divided between the powerful conservative clerics |
| 2:07.0 | close to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khameneii |
| 2:10.2 | and the reformist government of President Jhatami elected two years earlier on the promise of change. |
| 2:16.0 | The students largely supporters of the president thought that they were safe to demonstrate, |
| 2:21.0 | but later that same night, the security forces surrounded the student's dormitory. |
| 2:26.7 | Security forces and Islamic vigilantes stormed the university hostels, killing at least one student, |
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