May 25 and Memories of the Unrest
In our country, Iran, everything you try to write—even a memoir—becomes entangled with politics.
Before I entered the political world, May only reminded me of end-of-year exams. For someone like me, who always studied the night before, those days were tough, especially when they happened to coincide with the World Cup or the UEFA European Championship, when hardly any young Iranian could resist watching the matches.
When I started university, May gained a new significance for me, beginning on May 23, 1997, and marking the start of a new chapter. I now want to share my memories of the years that followed, especially May 25, a day I will never forget. My writing style might surprise some readers. Some expect me, as an opposition activist, to participate in intense political debates. Others—probably a small minority—may label me a troublemaker, a foreign-backed agitator, or someone with malicious intent. They might even try to file a lawsuit against me.
Of course, many others might just ignore someone like me.
In any case, freedom of expression is a sacred and inviolable principle to me.Just as many share their views and are celebrated for it, and many others express theirs and face punishment, I also wish to recount my memories, seeking neither recognition nor retribution.
1) May 25, 1998 – Laleh Park, Tehran
It was a very hot day. For several days, flyers had been distributed throughout the city, especially on university campuses, inviting the public and students to attend a Student–Public Rally at Laleh Park.
I decided to attend the event. My home was close to the park, about a ten-minute walk from Kashanak Street in northern Amirabad. The rally was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., and when I arrived, a large crowd had gathered around the main square. Parviz Safari, Mohammad Mas’ud Salamati, Seyyed Javad Emami, and Manuchehr Mohammadi stood on a truck and delivered their speeches to the people. Though the crowd’s chants made it hard to hear the speeches clearly, I clearly remember Emami opening his remarks with the well-known line: "I am willing to give my life so that my opponent may speak his mind." Soon, the scene turned into a full-scale battleground. Groups affiliated with Ansar-e Hezbollah and Kaveh Isfahan attacked students, both women and men, with chains, knives, and machetes. A young woman holding a picture of President Khatami stood next to me. Suddenly, a bearded plainclothes officer with an untucked black shirt over his trousers delivered a powerful kick to her abdomen, sending her flying several meters through the air. Throughout my years of student activism, I had seen many violent scenes, usually involving men. Yet, this event has stayed with me because of the brutality of the attack and because the victim was a woman.
I stepped forward in anger to defend her and confronted the attacker. At that moment, one of his friends hit me from behind with a heavy chain, striking my back and waist. Several students came to my aid, and after a few minutes, the fight ended. Then, the speakers became targets of attack, and several tear gas canisters were thrown among the students. From that point on, continuing the speeches was impossible. Laleh Park witnessed repeated clashes between students and plainclothes officials until about 7:00 p.m.
When I got home, the marks from the chain were still visible on my chest and back. Luckily, I wasn't seriously hurt because I was physically strong from regular exercise. However, I remember many young men and women who had been beaten so badly they couldn't stand up.
Manuchehr Mohammadi, one of the speakers, was taken to the hospital, and the others were also beaten. Parviz Safari later told me that someone had thrown an axe at him, passing just inches from his face.
The rally ended in violence and garnered widespread coverage in both domestic and international media. Some conservative newspapers described it as "a double-role performance by the students." One of the rally's most significant consequences was the impeachment of Abdollah Nuri, who was then the Minister of the Interior. When the conservative Fifth Parliament aimed to remove Nuri from office, one of the official reasons was his ministry's authorization of the May 25 rally. Nuri later told several members of the United Student Front that he knew granting the permit for the May 25, 1998, rally would come at a heavy cost—possibly his removal from his position.
2) May 25, 1999 – Tehran University, Inner Courtyard
The Ministry of Interior denied the United Student Front’s request to hold a student-public rally. After many meetings, our group decided that the event must happen one way or another, even if it's not in Laleh Park.
The Islamic Student Association of Tehran University, led by Mahmud Shushtari—a member of one of the founding groups of the United Student Front—asked for permission to hold the rally on university grounds instead. The university administration approved the request.
However, while members of the Front were preparing the necessary materials for the event, the university’s public relations office informed us on the morning of May 25 that the permit had been revoked.
The students were deeply disappointed. After extensive discussion in the central council, we agreed that the university was the students’ home and that the event must go on regardless of the circumstances.
From the moment we arrived at Tehran University, the atmosphere was tense. Members of Ansar-e Hezbollah, most of whom were not students, were preparing for another violent confrontation. This was not surprising; just days earlier, on May 19 in Ahmadabad and May 23 in Laleh Park, there had been large-scale clashes. In each incident, the students acted only in self-defense, which greatly angered the plainclothes officials.
This rally also ended early. After Parviz Safari finished his speech, it was time for the closing statement to be read. Mohammadreza Kasrani went up to the stage to read it, but before he could start, several plainclothes officials rushed at him, and a fight broke out.
The students started chanting slogans such as "Free the political prisoners!", "Parvaneh Foruhar, crimson tulip torn apart!", and "Freedom of thought, always and forever!" Male students formed a human chain to protect the female students from the attackers. I clearly remember Ahmad Batebi, Akbar Mohammadi, and Gholamreza Mahajerinejad playing key roles in creating this line of defense and stopping Ansar members from breaking through.
The clashes extended to the areas in front of the faculties of art, literature, and science. The most prominent student activists were targeted most aggressively. I was also attacked by several Ansar members near the Faculty of Literature, but fellow students rescued me.
By the time the violence eased up, my clothes were torn apart. A student gave me his shirt so I could leave the university without being seen.
Like the previous year, the rally on May 25, 1999, ended in violence and confrontation, although the 1998 clashes had been much larger.
3) May 24, 2000 – Gozaresh-e Rooz Newspaper Office, Tehran
As in previous years, the United Student Front applied for a permit to hold a student-public rally in front of Tehran University’s main gate on Enghelab Street. However, at the last moment, the Ministry of Interior denied permission. In the days leading up to the event, members of the Front had given numerous interviews to the media and widely distributed flyers across the city. On the morning of May 24, we gathered in the office of Gozaresh-e Rooz, the United Student Front's unofficial publication and the student movement's first independent newspaper. Some Central Council members believed that, as last year, the rally should proceed despite lacking authorization. Others, including Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, myself, and most council members, disagreed.
We believed that holding a street rally without control over participants' movements and slogans risked much greater violence than in previous years, reminiscent of the July 9, 1999 ("18 Tir") incident.
We did not want to be responsible for a situation that could result in the beating and mass arrest of students and citizens.
We also received reports that Ansar-e Hezbollah was getting ready for a confrontation.
We therefore decided to cancel the rally. Two members of the Front, Sa’id Kashilu and Mansur Faraji, went to Tehran University to publicly announce the cancellation. However, a large crowd, including students, gathered in front of the university and started chanting slogans.
As I later discovered, one of the slogans that day was: "Hashemi, have some shame, give up your seat!"—a reference to the controversial election of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to the Sixth Parliament. This election invalidated Dr. Alireza Raja'i's victory, a candidate from the National-Religious faction. The election was invalidated by the Guardian Council's decision.
Interestingly, after these events, Rafsanjani made a public statement on national television and officially resigned from parliament.
About ten days later, three other members of the United Student Front’s Central Council and I were arrested and taken to Evin Prison.
Hassan Zarezadeh and I were detained at the Gozaresh-e Rooz office, Mahmud Shushtari at Tehran University, and Sa’id Kashilu at his home. About ten more members of the Front were summoned to the Revolutionary Court. Two others, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi and Dr. Hamid Alizadeh, later joined us in prison.
During my interrogations at Evin Prison, I learned that many students and citizens were arrested during the rally but eventually released.
I believe our arrests were an attempt by the Intelligence Ministry to prevent the July 9 anniversary events, but the interrogators asked many questions about how the May 24 rally had been organized. Perhaps the most interesting question was why the United Student Front chose May 24 for most of its rallies—the same date on which, in 1972, the founders of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)—Mohammad Hanifnejad, Ali Asghar Badizadegan, and Sa’id Mohsen—had been executed by firing squad.
The authorities seemed to be attempting to link our group to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq to use against us, but they didn't succeed.
After five months in detention—two in Ward 209 of the Ministry of Intelligence and three in Ward 3 of Evin’s political section—my temporary detention order was changed to bail, and I was released.
4) May 25, 2001 – Solitary Cells of IRGC Detention Center No. 59 (Eshratabad)
I was arrested again on March 5, 2001, after being released from prison on October 24, 2000.
I was arrested for participating in a memorial ceremony held in front of Tehran University in honor of Dr. Mohammad Mosadegh. About an hour after the ceremony ended, as I was walking home with two friends, Sa'id Kashilu and Hamidreza Mobin, we were arrested. I spent seven months in solitary confinement—first in IRGC Detention Center No. 59, then in Jey Garrison, and finally in Ward 240 of Evin Prison. Like every other day in solitary confinement, May 25, 2001, was spent in silence and isolation—in a cell measuring one meter thirty by two meters. Many consider this to be the harshest form of torture.
5) May 25, 2002 – Advertising and Publishing Company
I started working in 2002 for an advertising and publishing company that produced books for the International Exhibition. While continuing my political activities, I also viewed securing an independent source of income as a vital priority. In my opinion, financial independence is the key condition for the survival and autonomy of any political party or group. When a group becomes financially dependent, it can no longer stay true to its ideals; those ideals tend to bend and shift with the changing influence of its patrons’ purse strings.
However, I don't aim to lecture anyone about political ethics.
On May 25, 2002, I was constantly traveling between different cities, negotiating contracts with industrial and commercial companies.
What made that day especially hard was that the company’s managing director—a close friend who offered me the job—insisted I visit clients in the scorching summer heat while wearing a full suit.
6) May 25, 2003 – Qasr Prison, Tehran
Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced me to six years in prison and also sent me to Qasr Prison as additional punishment. B
y that point, I had already spent almost two months in a ward with inmates convicted of violent crimes, moral offenses, and fraud. The conditions there were vastly different from those in Evin’s political ward. Around 1,200 to 1,300 prisoners were crammed into a single ward. Many slept on the floor of the corridors, and there was so little space that turning over while sleeping was nearly impossible.
Frequent fights, self-harm, and open drug use were also prevalent.
After the attack on the Tarasht student dormitory and efforts by two members of the Parliamentary Student Faction—Ali Akbar Musavi Kho'ini and Fatemeh Haqiqatju—along with political prisoner Amir Abbas Fakhravar, we were moved to the debtor's ward at Qasr Prison, which had relatively better conditions.
Later, Dr. Farzad Hamidi and Hojjat Bakhtiari joined us there. After some time, however, we were placed back among inmates in ward one. This ward housed prisoners convicted of murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping. The conditions were very harsh until, after nearly a year of imprisonment, Branch 5 of the Supreme Court’s Review Board overturned my sentence, and I was released.
7) May 24, 2004 – Sattarkhan Street, Tehran
Two days earlier, my friend Sa’id Kalanki woke me up late one morning with alarming news: Eleven activists, including Maryam Khorrami, a 22-year-old member of the United Student Front and the Tara Association, had been arrested in Karaj.
It seems that the months of May and June never pass quietly, always ending in unrest, controversy, and tension.
In recent years, nearly every month in Iran has felt like that. Only December seems comparable—the month when Dariush and Parvaneh Foruhar, Mokhtari, Puyandeh, Davani, and Sharif were killed; the month when our "December" burned in the fire of tyranny.
Kurosh Sehhati Tehran – May 24, 2004