Iranian opposition student groups condemn storming of British embassy

 

Iranian protesters storm the British embassy in Tehran on Tuesday. Photograph: Ay-Collection/Sipa/Rex Feature

Two opposition student organisations in Iran have condemned the storming of the British embassy, claiming those behind it were associated with the Islamic regime.

Tahkim Vahdat and Advar Tahkim, groups with some influence among Iranian students, have issued separate statements criticising the attack that triggered one of the worst crises in bilateral ties between Tehran and London since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"The office of Tahkim Vahdat condemns the attack at the British embassy – the attackers were not true representative of Iranian students, they were affiliated with the authorities in power," the statement said, according to Kalame.com, a website close to the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

"The [local] media portrayed the attackers as a group of students but people associated with pressure groups and some forces from the revolutionary guards were seen among them who have no affiliation to students," it added.

Tahkim Vahdat was originally created in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution as a conservative Islamist student organisation aimed at combating secular movements. At the time, many of its members were involved in the seizure of the US embassy and the hostage crisis.

But after the election in 1997 of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, it experienced a major shake-up and supported pro-democracy movements, especially in the events after the disputed presidential elections in 2009, when many of its members were arrested.

"Iran's national interests were damaged 32 years ago after the seizure of the US embassy with similar claims, an incident that doubled the challenges Iran was facing at the time," the organisation said. "Despite the claims, the leader of student movements [in Iran] and dozens of other students are currently kept in jail for criticism."

Advar Tahkim, a similar organisation but consisting of graduates and academics rather than students, said the attackers were from the basij militia, a paramilitary force under control of the revolutionary guards that has played a significant role in crushing protests organised by various movements, including student, women and political activists.

Western diplomats based in Tehran visited the British embassy and its separate diplomatic residential compound in Qolhak in the north of the capital on Thursday, where two days earlier protesters had damaged properties, ransacked offices and scattered documents.

The Polish ambassador in Tehran, whose country holds the presidency of the council of the European Union, is said to have held emergency meetings with his other counterparts. The semi-official Fars news agency said diplomats from Italy, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Spain and Turkey were among those who visited the two places on Thursday in solidarity with their British diplomats.

After inspecting the two compounds, diplomats told Reuters that what they witnessed appeared to have been the result of a "well organised" attack rather than a "spontaneous eruption of anger".

"It was devastating to see," one EU diplomat told the agency. "I saw two rooms where you couldn't see what they were. There was just ashes." He added: "You could tell the action was co-ordinated."

State agencies in Iran described the protest as a spontaneous reaction of "students" to Britain's anti-Iran policies, especially the UK's recent severing of all ties with Iranian financial sectors, including the Central Bank of Iran, which is crucial to the survival of the country's oil industry.

In his reaction to the attack, the foreign secretary, William Hague, who on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from the UK, told the parliament that the attackers were "student Basij militia".

In the wake of the recent events, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has so far remained silent, although his foreign ministry regretted the attack and promised an investigation.

Analysts believe Tuesday's storming of the embassy was not sanctioned by Ahmadinejad and his supporters, who have appeared as moderate in light of the incident, but rather by their opponents, who are believed to be attempting to undermine the president and his mandate in their top-level power struggle.

Some previously moderate figures in Iranian politics, such as the parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, or the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, have taken extreme stances recently in the hope of pleasing the radicals, especially the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for what is believed to be a greater share of power.